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John Rosen is widely enough known to the psychiatric worker not to need an extended introduction. He has chosen to issue a collection of his papers previously published in psychiatric journals covering his work in “direct analysis”. The volume contains nine papers. The first one is especially prepared for this book, and the last paper is a book review of Zinkin's translation of Bleuler's monograph on “Dementia Praecox”. The other seven include practically all Rosen has written on his particular method of treatment of schizophrenics. Most of these papers have been somewhat revised for inclusion in this volume.
The first paper on “General Principles” is important since it gives us some of the basic guiding principles behind his method, as well as a brief history of how he came to develop this technique. Rosen tells us that Federn suggested the term “direct analysis” for this new therapy. The author notes that it was “an unconscious (sic) impulsion to treat rather than a conscious determination to apply psychoanalysis to psychosis” that launched him in this work. In essence, Rosen's method is precisely a method of direct attack on, and approach to the psychotic unconscious using psychoanalytic insights and theory. His papers make abundantly clear what this means in actual practice. Whoever has been Dr. Rosen working with a patient will never forget the directness of the method.
There has been a whole new attitude toward the therapy of the psychotic. Rosen is not alone in the use of a “direct analysis”. Working independently, the Swiss psychologist, M. A. Sechaye in her “Symbolic Realization” (Berne: 1947) also was able to use successfully a directly analytic approach. Her work has aroused considerable interest, as did that of John Rosen.
This volume of papers gives us a truer picture of the author's contribution than was