Psychoanalysis and the Nuclear Threat. Clinical and Theoretical Studies: Edited by Howard B. Levine, Daniel Jacobs, and Lowell J. Rubin. Hillsdale, NJ/London: The Analytic Press, 1988. 290 pp.

After the second world war, psychoanalysts generally narrowed their focus almost exclusively to personal psychological distress and its treatment.1 With the exception of child care, at least in the English speaking world, psychoanalysts rarely asked for or received hearings on the great social and political issues. The threat of nuclear holocaust has aroused a group of analysts to attempt a more active contribution to society, to try to apply psychoanalytic insights to literally save the world. The nobility of the task should not blind us to the limitations of their methods and results, nor should the enormity of their undertaking and the unlikelihood of success obscure its importance.

In well-written essays, the authors explore the nuclear threat from many viewpoints. The first set of essays examines theoretical issues. Does the deployment of a way to destroy life support the idea of a primary destructive impulse in man? Is that impulse so strong that nuclear war is inevitable? Sanford Gifford discusses the place of the death instinct in Freud's thought. Hanna Segal provides a clear and compelling description of the manifestation of a