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(Development and analysis. The theory behind psychoanalytical psychotherapy.) By Martin Lotz. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzel, 2000.
This is a very ambitious book, in which the author tries to combine the three perspectives of neuro-physiology, empirical psychological research and psychoanalytic theory. He follows the axis of a child's development from birth up to and through the oedipal age, described here as after the third year of age. He also presents one chapter each on the phenomena of anxiety and depresssion. The author reports cleverly and pedagogically a huge amount of results from research and manages to illustrate clinical theory with well-written vignettes. There is an obvious risk though, in the design of the book, of being too eclectic. The author's personal views tend to be hidden behind all the facts.
Lotz treats psychoanalysis as a general psychological theory in order to let it be on a par with neurophysiology and empirical psychological research. From my point of view, psychoanalysis has to stand up for the unique in everybody's psychic life. This leads to the uniqueness of the relationship between psychoanalyst and analysand and the view that each analysis is a co-creation of the two people in the analytic room. Psychoanalytical theory is then a language we learn in order to be able to express new and personal truths in our meetings with the analysands. This might sound like inventing the wheel over and over again, but I think we have to do just that, because psychoanalysis should never be the application of a theory to reach a predetermined goal.
Lotz' book can serve as an inspiration to reflection on what we as psychoanalysts do and think and how we relate to the findings of other sciences, not to forget their pictures of man and the world.