Book Notes and Reviews

Bettelheim, B.: Symbolic Wounds, Puberty Rites and the Envious Male [Glencoe, Ill.:  The Free Press, Pp.  286, 1954, $4.75].

This interesting book proposes a unique theory of puberty rites based on the clinical experience of the author and on anthropologic data pointing towards the probability that men's envy of the woman's genitalia and their child producing function is as strong

or more active than the female envy of the penis. Among the supporting data from primitive cultures are the subincised penis phenomena and the child bearing rites symbolically carried out ritually by men. That the evidence available indicates a male envy as strong as the female one for the opposite sex genitalia will be doubted seriously by the devoted disciples of Freud. Perhaps the situation is still controversial.

The author has also challenged Freud's theory that circumcision is symbolic of castration and that one of its principal purposes is the initiation of the youth by the old male in terms of the enforcement of the incest taboo.

In reading this book one will be impressed by the fact that too many speculations of Freud have been presented throughout psychoanalytic literature as solid truths. This is one of the defects that has prevented psychoanalysis from becoming a science. There must be some characteristics of the human mind that Freud did not, on the one hand, observe or comment on or, on the other hand, misinterpreted. The author of this stimulating book has taken issue with some of the Freudian interpretations. It is an excellent book which should be of valuable service to both psychoanalysis and anthropology, since it contributes to the understanding of both primitive and civilized human beings.

Moloney, James C.: Understanding the Japanese Mind [New York:  Philosophical Library, pp.  252, 1954, $3.50]

The author has given herein an interesting hypothesis that the attitude of a culture is revealed by its reaction to psychoanalytic concepts and developments. Dr. Moloney demonstrates