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This book is an extension of the author's ideas developed in Models of the Mind (with Arnold Goldberg)1 and expanded in Beyond Interpretation.2 Based upon the widening scope of the characterological
problems presented by analysands, it seeks to define treatment techniques for patients with pregenital disturbances, particularly those manifesting what the author calls "archaic transferences." He is referring chiefly to a constellation of vanity, exhibitionism, and arrogant ingratitude. The theoretical framework, already elaborated in Beyond Interpretation, is Gedo's concept of mental functioning "as an epigenetic hierarchy of personal aims." This later book is intended to serve as a companion volume, aiming to "amplify and illuminate those aspects of my previous work which relate to psychoanalysis as a pragmatic clinical discipline" (p. 5).
The fourteen chapters (four previously published) are divided into four sections containing critiques of classical psychoanalysis, self psychology, and object relations theories, followed by further detail and discussion of the application of Gedo's hierarchical model. There is abundant clinical material, derived from nineteen of the author's cases, presented in varying but usually considerable detail. This alone, from a colleague who has thought and written about some of the central issues of the field for many years, makes the book a rich and rare contribution to our literature.
Though polemical in his tone as he offers an alternative to approaches he finds unsatisfactory, Gedo is often penetrating, incisive, and convincing in his assessments. In his extensive consideration of the significance of the oedipus compl