Charles Rycroft: A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

˝The terminology of psychoanalysis has often tended to lead to confusion in the minds of the lay public, and there has always been room for misunderstanding between the various analytic schools. Charles Rycroft's Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis has two aims. The first is to give clear definitions of the technical\terms used in psychoanalysis and of those words it has borrowed from everyd language but uses in its own precise sense. The second is to emphasize the philosophical, theoretical and semantic issues raised by particular analytical concepts, to demonstrate the difference in usage by different schools and to help the reader to appreciate how concepts which are apparently unrelated are nevertheless, in fact, connected with one another. Readers will discover from the expositions that follow the definitions that this is indeed a 'critical dictionary': Rycroft is ready to admit that certain concepts raise more problems than they solve. `Rycroft has brought off this delicate task with amazing success and in so doing has spared many a future student of psychoanalysis from severe headaches' (New Statesman)˝