Parin, to whom the entire volume is dedicated, explores political commitment from a psychoanalytic point of view. He reviews the analysis of four patients who were politically committed to "freedom" and "independence" during the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. The results of these analyses bear on questions of freedom of the ego from conflict in sublimated achievements, the utility of the concept of "residual neurosis," and the diagnosis of "normal" and "neurotic" when people are involved in political events. He concludes that while important childhood conflicts were revived and activated by the political event and played a part in his patients' commitment, the conclusion that this was the exclusive motivation is unjustified. Political commitment also had an adaptive, rational basis in these analysands.