Psychoanalytic Theory Neuroscience

Fenichel has done the impossible with this sublime work: he has made a canon of psychoanalysis, uniting almost imperceptibly theories and research from over 1500 journal articles upto 1945; he corrects Freud when wrong---as in his critique of the Death Instinct---yet he presents, extends, and applies Freud's science in a comprehensiveness and accuracy which no other psychoanalyst has since done. Fenichel not only summarizes and clearly explains theory, but also provides case-histories. He also decribes the most basic concepts of psychoanalysis such that any intelligent layman/woman could use this book as a starting point, though the book does reach a very sophiscated level after the introduction and early chapters. Very significant is Fenichel's presentation of how mere neuroses can advance to psychoses, and that solely mentalistic causes can force such an advance; this etiology ruptures the current fashion of emphasizing brain-biochemical causes, or, holding biochemicals to be the ONLY cause of mental illness; Fenichel's work here shows why the biochemical/physicalist-theory is at best half-true (despite the best marketing tactics of American pharmaceutical companies, and the outright bombast of the psychiatric community). Fenichel is truly Freud's heir, and anyone interested in what psychoanalyisis is should read this book, as well as Feni's Collected Papers. Pompous and asinine critics of psychoanalysis, from femininists to diluters like Lacan, to petty, small-minded "philosophers," like Adolph Grundbaum, could have no rejoinder to this work, and they rarely if ever refer to it: its scope is so vast, and its ordering of theory and fact so powerful, its sources so numerous that critics would prefer to ignore it. This is the most important work outside Freud's own that anyone could read.

Without a peer for an encyclopediac reference of psychoanalytic theory as it existed at the close of World War Two, Fenichels' Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis is an absolute necessity for any student of, researcher in or practitioner of psychoanalysis or analytic therapy. Unlike other reference works in the subject, which present analytic thinkers as competing "systems," Fenichel sets psychoanalytic theory up as a broad framework, with each theorist adding a novel perspective or elucidating finer points in the broad theory.