In Search of Love and Competence. Twenty-Five Years of Service, Training and Research at the Reiss-Davis Child Study Center: Edited by Rudolf Ekstein, Ph.D. New York: Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1976, 369 pp.

The Reiss-Davis Child Study Center of Los Angeles celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary by publishing the collective efforts of twenty-five staff members and trainees. The volume is dedicated to Anna Freud on her eightieth birthday.

At the Reiss-Davis Child Study Center, a relatively small group of faculty and students successfully applied the science of psychoanalysis to a well-integrated program of clinical and social service, training, and research. The Center creatively applied psychoanalytic knowledge to the broad field of education. At a psychoanalytic clinic, or a psychoanalytic child study center, the hub of the work, however, must be individual therapy. This was well recognized by the staff. Sensitive diagnostic evaluations, brief interactions, emergency interventions, and long-term individual psychotherapy were done with children and adolescents, as well as work with parents.

When this volume was published in 1976, the director and staff were looking forward to many more years of extending to the field of education the application of psychoanalytic understanding and science. In many private institutions throughout the country, however, funding has become a serious problem, and treatment, training, and research have had to be curtailed or even discontinued in some cases. Unfortunately, the Reiss-Davis Child Study Center has also been affected by financial problems and has not been able to continue its work. It is hoped that the important activities by analysts and professionals in allied fields described in this volume will be continued at other institutions and departments.

The volume is divided into six parts: Part I deals with the Center, its history, philosophy, purpose, and scope; Part II discusses