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The essays in this volume, written to honor Dr. Leo Rangell, are a fitting tribute to the man and his important and unique contribution to psychoanalysis. They reflect his warmth and concern as a man and his curiosity, intelligence, and dedication as an investigator of the human psyche.
The first essay is a personal memoir by Jacob Arlow who nostalgically recounts experiences which he and Leo Rangell shared when they were house officers at the same hospital. Though they later settled on either coast of the United States, their friendship has persisted, cemented as it is by their devotion to psychoanalysis.
Robert Rodman presents a condensed overview of Rangell's work in an essay entitled "Leo Rangell and the Integrity of Psychoanalysis." The title is felicitous, as it characterizes Rangell's approach to his life and work and indicates his interest in the subject of integrity, about which he has written and spoken at length. Closely related to Rangell's interest in integrity is his concern with intrapsychic conflict. The resolution of intrapsychic conflict involves decision making and choice. To choose is to give up and lose the alternative. Inconsolability can be a response to loss. Edward Weinshel's article on inconsolability elucidates what is known of the subject and points to areas that require further exploration.
Charles Brenner points out that symptoms, like dreams, are compromise formations and require analysis. He rejects the idea, accepted by some analysts, that symptoms are unimportant. The dismissal of symptoms, Brenner believes, is an overreaction to an earlier excessive focus on symptoms that disregarded the dynamic and genetic issues behind them. Symptoms are compromise formations. Their analysis can yield valuable information.
Contrary to the belief of some analysts that preoedipal events contribute little of importance to therapeutic psychoanalysis, Marjorie Harley demonstrates the significance of the distorted ego and drive development whic