THE CASE AGAINST PSYCHOANALYSIS

A no-stone-unthrown barrage at psychoanalysis which from its prophetic opening observation (""the first half of this century marked the rise of psychoanalysis- the second half of this century witnesses the twilight"") gives the young science an ample assist on its way down. Attacking Freudian theory and practice, even in its later adaptations and permutations, Salter starts with the fundamentals- the erroneous sexual exaggeration, the concept of the unconscious, and proceeds to the techniques: the couch (an undertaker parlor's equipment), the transference, dream interpretation (""poker with everything wild""), the interminable treatment, and Freud's never-never land of non-normality. And statistics of failure, or unimprovement, lend a discouraging finality to the indictment. Salter, the author of Conditioned Reflex Therapy (his own palliative for a variety of disturbances and addictions) uses extremes to make his points and makes no allowance for the more temperate trend in psychoanalytic processing today.