PSYCHOANALYSIS: Uses & Abuses

Dr. Friedman, who now has several California affiliations but graduated from Medical School in Vienna in 1931, is closer to this point of origin that the present: (a) his presentation of psychoanalysis is purely Freudian; (b) he has not revised any of the really obsolescent handling of certain problems to correlate with current thinking and practices. Doctors, parents, and others in custodial capacities as he claims do not emphasize bowel movements as they did long, long ago; masturbation is certainly no longer stigmatized with disapproval. He also is given to waste paper basket generalities (guilt is the major cause of severe emotional disturbance--there just could be others). The first half of the book presents the Freudian manifesto from the theory of the Unconscious and the Id and the Ego et al.; the second half deals with psychoanalytic treatment presenting analysis as the ""only comprehensive theory of human psychology."" One could well suspect that the book itself could have one of our more fashionable, modern disorders--an identity crisis--since it's really a non-book in that it contributes nothing new or in many cases valid.