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The authors have presented a reasonably short, concise and well written story of elementary psychodynamics from the psychoanalytic point of view. They have attempted, first, to present the neuroanatomic and neurophysiologic basis of nervous activity and to explain this in fairly simple language. The parental activities and the psychosexual development of the child are presented along classic lines, and then the conflict and its resolution through symptom formation are discussed. Most of the common mental mechanisms are presented. No technical language is omitted; but whenever such words are used they are immediately translated into everyday terminology, clarified sometimes by too homely examples.
The general tenor of the book is excellent. While it seems designed for lay persons, it must of necessity, through its choice of material, appeal most to a small fraction of them. It is ideally suited to medical students as an aid in their early orientation to psychiatry.