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This is a book written by Ernst Federn, son of Paul Federn, a pioneer within the psychoanalytic movement. It has eighteen chapters, grouped under four headings: (1) social psychology; (2) on the psychology of terror and violence; (3) a psychoanalytic psychotherapy; (4) on the history of psychoanalysis.
The wide range and variety of subjects covered throughout the work demonstrates a richness of experience which Federn conveys with enthusiasm for psychoanalysis, while managing to question and challenge some of its orthodoxy. His strength of character developed by experience within the psychoanalytic field shows through as Federn, and those whose ideas he quotes, refuse to be reduced by adversity, threat to life, or overpowering forces of resistance to understanding in psychoanalytic work. His account of his imprisonment in Dachau and Buchenwald during the war sets a tone for the book which is salutary and wise. Throughout, Ernst Federn often writes from a historical, social, or political perspective, yet he has contributed by giving us a book which is always clinically relevant as he tackles many topics of applied psychoanalysis which will be of interest to child, adolescent, and adult therapists.
I encountered in this book an honesty and frankness which made it easy to read. In addition to its subject matter it reminds us that something of the ‘person’, be it in his personality or character, is a vital force bigger than its component parts, which has enabled Ernst Federn to work within, and live out, psychoanalysis, while also being an observer of it and life.
I recommend this book as something different from the usual text. It gains by being of a different tradition. Federn's Viennese roots in psychoanalysis seem to get him nearer to the heart of the matter.