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This collection of Loewald's papers, edited and compiled by Loewald himself, affords an opportunity to study the development and progression of a major psychoanalytic theoretician's thought over a span of thirty years. The volume, containing twenty-four articles, is divided into two sections: "Concepts and Theory" and "Pyschoanalytic Process." Loewald acknowledges that his placement of a paper in one division rather than the other is arbitrary at times, but the division is useful nevertheless. The papers are arranged by chronology, and for most of them a brief introductory footnote is provided, giving the context in which they were written or originally presented.
The "Concepts and Theory" section begins with three papers from the early 1950's which contain the beginnings of Loewald's innovations, elaborations, and revisions of key psychoanalytic theoretical issues. They include ideas about the development of the mature ego, through progressively more highly integrated and organized stages, out of the internalization of object relationships; new emphases on castration anxiety and the negative oedipus complex; and the evolution of the sense of reality and the organization of instinctual drives out of the mother-child interactional matrix. Loewald from early on showed an interest in ego defects and called for a new emphasis on the ego's integrative and organizing functions as opposed to its defensive functions. These papers, as well as his more familiar, later ones, are profound and sweeping in their scope. They occasionally include a philosophical and cultural perspective that adds richness and complexity, but they are clinically relevant and firmly based on the author's psychoanalytic experience in treating patients. The revisions and elaborations he presents are thoughtfully and creatively applied to many clinical and theoretical issues. For example, in the theory section, his fundamental contributions on the subjects of structure formation, object relatio