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This collection represents the scientific proceedings of one meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. It is comprised of fifteen papers, with a discussion of each, and is grouped into four sections: Historical and Ethnic, Techniques of Child Therapy, Family Therapy, and Social Psychiatry. These are preceded by an opening chapter, Psychoanalysis and Psychiatric Training, the presidential address by Harold I. Lief.
The book is well edited and of consistently high quality throughout. Worthy of note is the contribution by Zira Defries, et al., The Treatment of Secondary Reading Disability in Young Boys. Secondary reading disability refers to reading problems that are of emotional rather than neurological origin. After a well-controlled study of several groups of third graders, the authors conclude that 'no significant difference in reading improvement occurred between therapy and control groups. All made gains.' Therapy groups, however, made meaningful gains in attitude, self-confidence, and behavior.
In a report on family therapy, Salvador Minuchin discusses the different frames of reference of this treatment modality and clearly delineates the overlapping of individual and group dynamic theory as well as the ambiguity this may engender in the therapist. He presents his approach to family therapy as an ecological psychiatry and emphasizes the danger of taking too narrow a view