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The publication of this timely collection in 1995, coincided with the defeat of the Clintons' health reform proposal and the pressures brought to bear on psychoanalysis by the formidable Health Maintenance
Organizations. Editors Cohen, Etezady, and Pacella provide a rich compendium of papers by eminent psychoanalysts and child experts demonstrating the far-reaching contribution of psychoanalysis in today's world.
Divided into four major topic areas, Volume 2 of The Vulnerable Child deals with “Narcissism and Hostile Aggression,” “Child Analysis on the National Mental Health Scene,” “Adolescent Mothers and Children with Constitutional Deficits,” and “Child Abuse.” Of particular merit are the first two sections. These offer discussion from an outsider's perspective that provides the reader with an opportunity to enter mentally into a lively interaction with the material. The discussions tantalize the reader.
“Narcissism and Hostile Aggression” begins with Etezady's “Narcissism: Primary-Secondary, Fundamental, or Obsolete?” He views primary and secondary narcissism as sequential phases of the same developmental continuum and discusses the mother's libidinal availability in the modulation of aggression and drive fusion. The second chapter is “A Developmental Approach to Narcissism” by Isaiah A. Share, Shirley R. Rashkis, and Bertram A. Ruttenberg. Both the first and second chapters are followed by a noteworthy discussion by Leon Hoffman. He makes the point that to adequately understand narcissism, one must have a thorough theoretical understanding of the vicissitudes of aggression. It is at this juncture that the reader would expect to find the next chapter devoted to the topic of aggression. Instead, one finds a poignant and painfully gripping paper, “Narcissism in the Service of Survival,” by Judith S. Kestenberg and Ira Brenner. Their work deals with childhood victims of Nazi persecution who resiliently and remarkably find within themselves the power to su