You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The cogent reasons for undertaking the compilation of the Encyclopedia are specified in the Introduction—the confusion about
psychoanalytic terminology occasioned by early definitions that were vague; the borrowing of terms and concepts from other sciences or the common language, altered but never properly redefined; translation difficulties arising from contributions from many different languages; and the dynamic development of the concepts themselves. The editors also correctly anticipated certain difficulties—that the compilation would be necessarily incomplete and that the selection of terms and the interpretations given would be controversial. For this reason, as well as the arduous labor involved, Eidelberg and his fellow editors deserve credit for their courage in proceeding. One can only hope that they are prepared for the reproaches that are inevitable.
The project, supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the A. L. H. Foundation, required over six years for its completion. The result is a beautifully bound volume, printed in large type—so that it is pleasingly legible—in two columns on each page. The English style is more than usually readable, and the book is well edited. There is a list of six hundred forty-three entries, many of them clinically illustrated, with mention of related concepts and selected references following each topic. A bibliography at the end, unfortunately extending only through 1963, lists together the fifteen hundred references cited from the literature, and a carefully prepared index contains not only subheadings of the entries and the subject matter, but also the authors mentioned in the text and references.
The reviewer's criticism of an encyclopedia is necessarily impressionistic. It must deal with the general expectations of such a work rather than the definitions and interpretatins specifically, although the latter may be cited as examples of shortcomings in the attainment of over-all object