Psychoanalytic Abstracts: A Research Treasure

Psychoanalytic Abstracts is a valuable bibliographic research tool APsaA members should know more about.

Published quarterly by the American Psychological Association, it abstracts nearly 2000 items of psychoanalytic writing worldwide annually. Each year, the March issue contains summaries of books and chapters on psychoanalytic topics. In the most recent issue, March 2004, over 100 books were summarized. The June and December issues contain abstracts of articles published in 63 psychoanalytic journals worldwide, including those in English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. The September issue comprises abstracts of psychoanalytic topics drawn from nonpsychoanalytic and nontraditional journals covered in the PsycINFO database of over 1900 journals. (More about PsycINFO later.) There is an annual author, subject, and book title index with no overlap of coverage in the three formats.

It is the abstracts of current journals that, I believe, APsaA members would find most useful and interesting. Reading some of the abstracts can not only be fun but also profitable—a quick and easy way to find out what is being published in journals often unavailable. For example, a glance at the volume for 2003 reveals an article in the American Journal of Psychoanalysis by a Hungarian analyst on whether Michael Balint might have done more for Sándor Ferenczi's reputation. There is an article on Freud's use of cocaine in the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis, an article by Lore Reich Rubin on Wilhelm Reich and Anna Freud and his expulsion from psychoanalysis in the International Forum of Psychoanalysis, and a paper by Elliott Jaques on work and the unconscious in Psychoanalytic Psychology.

I could provide countless examples of articles that might be of interest, but I hope I have whet your appetite for the bibliographic treasure that is Psychoanalytic Abstracts.

Members of the Division of Psychoanalysis receive Psychoanalytic Abstracts as part of their annual dues. Members of the American Psychological Association may subscribe for $45 annually, and nonmembers for $66; institutional subscriptions are higher. The journal, now in its 18th year of publication, began as PsycSCAN: Psychoanalysis and changed its name to Psychoanalytic Abstracts in 1993.

PsycINFO

APsaA members who receive Psychoanalytic Abstracts also have free online access to the electronic version. PsycINFO, mentioned above, is an electronic bibliographic database that provides abstracts and citations to the scholarly literature of the behavioral sciences and mental health. It contains over two million records in its database of journals and other materials, going back to 1887, and, of course, includes Psychoanalytic Abstracts. PsycINFO is a useful supplement to the APsaA database as it covers so many more journals and includes materials that predate psychoanalytic journals.

The price of PsycINFO varies, depending on whether one is an individual searching from one's home or office, or an institution providing the database to many people. PsycINFO may be searched at reasonable cost for a 24-hour period. Your college, university, or institute library may, indeed, have access to PsycINFO. More information on electronic databases may be obtained by going to the American Psychological Association Web site: and clicking on the desired subjects.

I am a member of the Editorial Board of Psychoanalytic Abstracts along with nine other psychologists. The editors are Linda Beebe and Alvin Walker from the Publications Office of the American Psychological Association. Each year we meet during the annual convention of the American Psychological Association to discuss the addition of new journals to the database. Choices for inclusion are made on the bases of the archival value of a journal, the size of its circulation, and its relevance to psychoanalysis. The editorial meetings that I have attended over the past six years have attested to the seriousness and value of this enterprise.