Basic Mental Concepts
- Author:
Edward Glover, M.D.
Imago Publishing Uo., Ltd. London, is. bo.
It is not clear precisely to what audience this book is addressed. Its purpose, to quote from the preface, is to revive interest in the fundamental disciplines of psychoanalytical theory as a counterweight to ” the post-war inauguration of a ‘ silly season ‘ in medical psychology during which older forms of non-analytical therapy have been resucitated, tricked out in the thinnest of theoretical dress and presented to a never too discriminating psychological faculty as new and significant creations The method of the book is to endeavour to establish, on strictly Freudian lines, a concept of primary dynamic function to regulate the theories of mental economy from birth to the end of this primary dynamic phase, a stage which Dr Glover associates with the development of speech. As such the author is intent to distinguish between the embryonic phase of mental organization of this primary period and the more organized stage of mental function which can be directly observed by the technique of analysis, and to avoid transferring automatically the organizations of this second stage of mental development to the basic concepts of the first.
Within these limits, this book is a deep and scholarly examination of the nature of these basic concepts, but it contains little that will be new, and nothing that will be unacceptable, to the confirmed disciple of Freudian psycho-analytical technique. Equally, its highly theoretical approach and its basic acceptance without question of some fundamental points will do nothing to convert those whom Dr Glover would doubtless regard as heretics from the faith. Many followers of other schools of psychotherapeutic and psychopathological thought will admit to more than the acceptance of ” a glib currency of terms originally psycho-analytical in annotation ” and to much of the basic concepts which Dr Glover here describes, without in any way weakening their views on adult or child therapeutic methods. The danger of this book lies in the ammunition it may provide to antagonists of psychological medicine, who are so prone, not without some justification, to point the finger of scorn at the schismatic battle which splits the various psychiatric groups.
Nor is this a book for the student, since its assimilation, apart altogether from its acceptance, requires a very considerable knowledge of fundamental psychoanalytical theory.
Whilst, therefore, the appeal of this work must be limited, it is, nevertheless, a masterly exposition and discussion of a theoretical problem of great importance. T.A.R.
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