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This book was originally to have been part of an encyclopedia of psychoanalysis. When the encyclopedia project was abandoned, the authors who had agreed to contribute articles on child analysis decided to produce this independent volume consisting of twenty-five chapters by twenty-nine distinguished authors in the fields of child analysis, child psychotherapy, child development, early childhood education, and special education. The volume is organized into eight parts. After an introductory overview of child analytic technique and a section on general principles of child analysis by the editor, there are sections on: assessment of patients for child analysis; child analysis at different developmental stages; specific aspects of the analytic process, such as the opening phase, transference and the transference neurosis, dream analysis, and termination; adjuncts to child analysis, e.g., tutoring and nursery school; the analysis of adopted children as a special situation; and a final section on the applications of the principles of child analysis to prevention, diagnostic evaluation, child psychotherapy, and the psychotherapy of psychotic children.
The organization of the volume, with its thorough, rational, encyclopedic approach, is one of its strengths. At the same time this contributes to one of the drawbacks because a number of the writers start with a statement of the principles of child analysis as they apply to that topic; consequently there is considerable repetition. However, every major topic in child analysis and therapy is covered by psychoanalytic clinicians rich in experience who distill their experience and share it with the reader. This they do in two main ways: by formulating their ideas and principles in a common theoretical framework which gives the volume a unity that could not otherwise have been achieved; and by illustrating their formulations generously with case material which in a number of instances is quite extensively presented, yet f