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In a period of no new major theories or clinical innovations, a personal synthesis of theoretical ideas for clinical work is most welcome. Fred Pine's Drive, Ego, Object, and Self A Synthesis for Clinical Work is precisely such an effort to consolidate complex observations that subserve the field of psychoanalysis. Sutherland (1963) noted that “the complexities of the massive body of observations which now characterize psychoanalysis make it more unlikely that any one model would cover other than limited aspects of its theories” (p. 109). Pine's present work recognizes the limitations of freezing one model in place and ensures that an interdigitation between models is possible without sacrificing any one profile of psychoanalytic thought or praxis. Sutherland made two crucial remarks that can assist readers of Drive, Ego, Object, and Self to undertake a close reading and still be faithful to Pine's enterprise. First, he echoed Colby (1955) that models are visual aids that “picture imaginative constructions of organization” (quoted by Sutherland, 1963; p. 109). Second, Sutherland himself cautioned, however, that “although they [models] do not constitute a theory but merely help to illustrate it, they are often mistaken for the realities of which they are representations” (p. 109).
These two observations, which suggest that models are representative imaginative constructions of organized ideas and carry the potential for misreading models as though they were realities in themselves, deserve praise for Pine's excellent synthesis and his