The Logic of Explanation in Psychoanalysis. Michael Sherwood. New York:  Academic Press, 1969.  276 pp.

Michael Sherwood, a psychiatrist with an analytic and philosophy of science background, has written a book the ideas of which seem destined to eventually take hold in the psychoanalytic community. The influence, however, will become manifest only after it spends considerable time gathering dust in the libraries of the training institutes. This is so because, among other reasons, the subject matter, a philosophical study of basic methodological issues in psychoanalysis, has never been very popular among analysts. This fact is reflected in the absence of philosophy of science training in the official and unofficial institutes, among the medically and the nonmedically trained, and in the institute graduate or in the self-taught. As Sherwood points out, this aversion toward scientific method has cost analysis dearly in terms of much repetitive and sterile criticism inside as well as outside the field. He is optimistic, however, in that he believes it is possible for psychoanalysis to become more scientific without losing its essential character. But this can't happen without a new generation of analysts dedicated toward working out the many methodological issues. This reviewer is convinced by Sherwood, among others of similar persuasion, and feels that it is time to introduce a philosophy of science mentality early in the training careers of analysts and near analysts.

The main lines of The Logic of Explanation in Psychoanalysis are very well summarized by the author himself, as follows:

If the first conclusion is that psychoanalytic explanations are extremely complex and difficult to analyze, the second conclusion is that they nevertheless represent a type of scientific explanation. In Chapter 3 we argued the general point that there were no logical reasons why scientific explanations of human behavior should be impossible. In Chapter 4 we looked at one particular type of explanation that has been suggested, namely, psychoanalytic explanations, and we examined an actual