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Ernest Abelin's book is the outgrowth of a thesis written some ten years ago in the early years of the author's training and, as he modestly reminds us, with limited clinical data and time.
Starting with a moderately detailed cross sectional history of the interaction between a sixteen-year-old psychotic child and the other members of his family (parents and a schizoid younger brother), Abelin attempts to formulate the case on the basis of a few clinical interviews and subsequent follow-up of the case at a distance. A number of other psychotic children and families are alluded to, but in lesser depth.
In the most original portion of the book, the author sets himself the ambitious task of using his clinical formulations as a starting point on which to build a far-reaching, unified theory of schizophrenia in childhood, combining genetic, constitutional, familial, and developmental points of view along with references to Piaget's theory of sensory motor development and Spitz's theory of the organizers. This erudite, highly condensed, abstract piece of work requires very careful reading to grasp the vast pyramid of knowledge that Abelin erects for our benefit. Also included is a thorough review of the literature through 1965. In order to facilitate our task, a summary is included at the start of each chapter.
In a well written introduction, Abelin spells out some of the more obvious pitfalls of his over-all approach: the drawbacks of excessive speculation and the considerable difficulty in anchoring wide ranging theory building on rather limited clinical data. To be sure, his formulations are not inconsistent with his new data, but there is a certain danger in believing that one has 'explained' or understood the clinical facts rather than translated them into another more abstract but not necessarily more enriching language.