Many of us at times have a questioning—bordering on doubtful—attitude toward medical treatment in general and psychoanalytic treatment in particular. At the same time, we heartily recommend treatment for others and have confidence in the clinical acumen of selected colleagues, not to mention in ourselves. Yet how much of this confidence is based on objective appraisal and how much on faith?

If you are of two minds—as I believe most of us are—this book will appeal to you. Starting with Freud's traditional case presentations, coauthors Kachele, Schachter, and Thoma—members of the Ulm Psychoanalytic Process Research Study Group in Ulm, Germany—demonstrate the ambiguity and incompleteness of the usual clinical accounts. The following complaints are familiar to all of us: the presenting therapist