Tactics and Techniques in Psychoanalytic Therapy: Edited by Peter L. Giovacchini. New York: Science House, Inc., 1972. 754 pp.

This large volume is a collection of papers by fifteen authors. There is much repetition and certain sections are somewhat tedious

to read; I feel the book could have appeared with fewer pages without sacrificing any of the richness of the material.

The title implies that the book will deal with the art and science of psychoanalytic technique. In fact, however, the authors focus on only one sector of psychoanalytic technique: the treatment of patients with severe ego-superego deformities and pathology. Giovacchini seems to feel that most analysts today are not aware of the widening scope of psychoanalysis; that many analysts do not attempt to analyze nonneurotic patients. It has been my experience, however, that most analysts feel that many severely ill patients can be analyzed successfully, while they know that some neurotic patients prove to be unanalyzable.

The weakness of the book is that the authors do not clearly define the problems and criteria for analyzability and they do not concern themselves seriously with attempting to understand and conceptualize the differences between the psychoanalytic situation and process and the psychotherapeutic one. It may be that the differences are blurred because many of the contributors do not believe that there are any significant differences between psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy. An important task for psychoanalytic educators is, I think, to clarify these differences in the course of analytic training. The tactics and techniques that have to be used at times with very ill patients have to be considered from the base line of classical analytic technique and with knowledge of the complexity and subtlety of ego psychology.

Analytic educators have an important responsibility and task: to assign supervised cases for our beginning candidates that unfold—of course with the help of a good technique—in a classical manner. Only with this learning experience are candidates able to move on to s