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Of what interest to a psychoanalytic audience is an intellectual autobiography of a Soviet theorist, known primarily in the West for his studies on
neurophysiological processes? Except for a brief tenure as Secretary of the Soviet Psychoanalytic Society during the 1920s (a society that was little more than a paper organization with few ties to the Vienna group) and having the distinction of being one of the first researchers to try to combine classical laboratory procedures within a psychodynamic framework…“I decided to initiate my own ‘experimental psychoanalysis' using the distortions of motor responses as an objective measure of inner emotional conflicts”…Most of Luria's career seems far removed from the concerns of the psychoanalytic theorist and practitioner. Yet, if we search beyond the surface we find currents which form a consistent stream that modern developmentalists and analysts have confronted headon: the hierarchical nature and organization of thought processes, the effects of primary process thought on personality dynamics, the nature of the process of internalization, and the general developmental path from interpsychic to intrapsychic. Luria's statements and research findings serve as an addendum to the general understanding of ego functioning and the role of culture and history in the formation of the psyche.
Since the psychoanalytic community seems to have rediscovered the necessity of a theory of cognition (e.g., the publication by analytic presses of articles and books by or about Piaget, Werner and others), this autobiography can be an important addition to the attempt to incorporate the best of nonanalytic thinking into a full developmental theory, without negating the contributions of affect-oriented researchers and theorists. One can only regret that Luria's book on an objective approach to psychoanalysis never advanced beyond the stage of an initial draft, and, with his death, will probably never reach publication. What is available, howeve