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Kirsty Hall, Nicola Godwin and Iain Snell, London, Karnac Books, 2010, 96 pp., £12.99 (paperback)
This is a small book with a large purpose, namely to describe the development of psychoanalytic theory from Freud to the present day, to highlight the limitations of psychoanalytic investigation and to discuss its effectiveness in comparison with non-analytic therapies.
The opening chapters point out inherent problems in the way that psychoanalytic discourse is formulated. The authors point out that the relationship of patient and therapist engaged in the process of psychodynamic narrative understanding make it a therapy not readily reducible to treatment manuals or NICE guidelines. However, there have been examples where therapy which is based on psychoanalytic principles is manualized making it possible to train consistently in the particular therapy. This also means that therapists can be assessed for adherence to the manual which is valuable in conducting research studies (Bateman & Fonagy, 2004; Luborsky, 2000).
They refer to ‘The question of lay analysis’ (Freud, 1926), which summarizes for the public his ideas concerning analytic therapy and go on to pose questions such as: Why are certain thoughts shameful and difficult to share? Is analysis simply based on suggestion and does it differ from a confessional? What is the nature of the sexual impulses of children and the role of trauma in neurosis? What is the difference between health and neurosis? Why does analysis take so long? How do we know when the correct interpretation has been given? These issues are developed into a discussion of Freud's early work with hypnosis, his theory of dreams, infantile sexuality and his later structural model of the mind.
The next chapter begins with Jung. It illustrates his wide interests in spirituality and religion while making it clear that he regarded himself as a ‘natural scientist’. The contributions of Klein, Winnicott, Fairbairn, Bowlby and Bion, object relations theorists,