Contributions to Developmental Neuropsychiatry: By Paul Schilder, M.D. Edited by Lauretta Bender, M.D. New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1964. 407 pp.

Dr. Schilder's scientific orientation underwent many changes during his lifetime. But each new experience was grafted onto what had existed before; they combined with each other, and the resulting compound participated in the next experience. He was thoroughly grounded in neurology, philosophy, psychology, clinical psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. For him these various disciplines were in a continuous state of interaction and yielded a creativity which derived from all of them. In essence, they were an endless set of changing mental frames which gave a fresh, original look to old facts. His own ideas, his own mental attitude, were in a fluid state of development.

This volume on developmental neuropsychiatry has a conceptual frame of reference that parallels Schilder's. Throughout the various topics studied, one theme prevails: in mental life there always is change occurring through reactions from within and without the organism. Schilder had the capacity to embrace the multiple systems of knowledge with effortless ease, not in any shallow 'eclecticism', but with a harmonious blending under the sway of his own creative imagination.

Topics range from primitive perception, personality development, language, thoughts, and symbol formation to clinical presentations for confirmation of his theoretical formulations. In the chapter on primitive perception, his discussions of the role that sensory