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This is the first of a series of monographs that outline the work and summarize the discussions of the Kris Study Group of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. It points a direction which can be followed in postgraduate teaching and discussion of detailed clinical reports, thus helping to establish a precedent for similar discussions within psychoanalytic institutes and societies. To this reviewer it seems a natural continuation and progression of a method which began with Freud's study group in Vienna and promoted the early development of psychoanalysis.
Burness Moore provides an excellent historical survey of the early study groups in Vienna, Berlin, and Prague, and reminds us that the New York Society, as well as most of the other societies, is an outgrowth of devoted small study groups that gathered for the study of psychoanalysis. In 1953, at the request of a number of his students, Dr. Ernst Kris undertook this larger project under the direct sponsorship of the New York Institute and Society. Kris, with his unusual qualities of warmth, imagination, and intuition, proved to be a teacher and leader equal to such an endeavor. Although his untimely death in 1957 meant that he was able to participate only in the first reported study group, the interest and impetus that he engendered led to the continued growth of the Kris Study Group. At present, the group consists of four sections of twenty participants each, led by Arlow, Beres, Brenner, and Loewenstein.
This first monograph contains the reports of the first two study groups, with the case records and subsequent discussions summarized by Joseph. In the first study group on beating fantasies, Kris attempted to establish a basic formulation for the many facets of the problem. He tentatively suggested that the possible common