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The editors of this volume have collected eleven quite different essays with a wide range of individual perspectives. Although the title promises a set of contributions to the study of object relations, the various articles deal with a variety of topics. The unifying idea seems to be the book's dedication to one of the rare German psychoanalysts of the third generation, Wolfgang Loch, who indeed developed some new ideas about object relations theory. The editors
promise a wide range "which covers questions of the politics of science, of psychosomatic problems, and of fundamental social and human structures, as well as investigations of the psychoanalytic process proper, the formation of symbols and myths, interpretation of dreams, regression and primary repression" (p. 2)—a promise which is not always fulfilled.
A problem is presented by the use of a mixture of English and German in the book. Only two articles enable the reader who is not bilingual to get a clear idea of the book's focus. Most of the German contributions, furthermore, follow the academic tradition of a rather esoteric, philosophical orientation that is not always directly related to Loch's efforts to expand object relations theory.
According to the editors, the core of the book consists in a heretofore unpublished 1924-1928 correspondence between Freud and Ferenczi, with comments and reflections by Ilse Grubrich-Simitis. The content of these friendly communications about "how far technical innovations are compatible with the integrity of theory" has not lost its significance with the passage of time. The authors and editors believe that the papers in the book reflect similar current problems. They view the contributions as being linked together "by those personal elements which always are part of object relations and which lay emphasis on countertransference, the dialectic part of transference" (p. 2). Despite this optimistic generalization, however, only a few articles deal directly with t