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In this epoch of collaborative endeavors between the human sciences George Devereux's book is highly welcome: it constitutes true multidisciplinary work, based on the insights of psychoanalysis and cultural anthropology.
According to Abel and Métraux, in their discussion of the history of psychoanalytic theory in relation to the theory of culture, “The first research worker who fully incorporated the training—but more especially the practice—of both disciplines was George Devereux.” ( Culture and Psychotherapy. and . New Haven, Conn.: College and University Press, 1974.)
The title of the book as well as its contents indicate that the author is giving equal attention to both sides of the equation—the psychoanalytic and the sociocultural perspectives. He does not reduce the psychological to the sociocultural or vice-versa: rather his intent is to preserve the integrity of individual and culture as separate and equally important prisms through which to understand human behavior.
The thesis that ethnology and psychoanalysis are complementary frames of reference is formulated in the first theoretically oriented chapter, “The Argument,” and constitutes Devereux's major theme, illustrated in the more empirical chapters of the book. For lack of space and because each chapter deserves extensive review I shall confine myself to only a selection of his more recent work.
In Chapter 3 on culture and the unconscious. Devereux formulates an arresting rapprochement, which he terms his “substantive” thesis: “Were anthropologists to draw up a complete list of all known types of cultural behavior, this list would overlap point by point, with a similarly complete list of impulses, wishes, fantasies, ets., obtained by psychoanalysts in a clinical setting, thus demonstrating… the psychic unity of mankind and the validity of psychoanalytic interpretations of culture …” Devereux's “methodological” thesis is that “The intensive analysis in depth of the context and implica