In the great welter of literature on child development, this thoughtful work is refreshing and rewarding reading. The author, a psychoanalytically trained psychiatrist, presents the material of a series of lectures, given over a period of years for the Family Service Association of America. Her point of view is that of the practical-minded clinician, who endeavors to impart to her hearers basic and time-tested information about the emotional development of the child. She succeeds in presenting a broad, sound theoretical background that gives substance and meaning to her clinical perspectives. She is modest, given to understatement rather than expansiveness, with the result that the reader derives a sense of substantial understanding of the child, his environment, his needs and the nature of his growth.
The author has divided her discussion into exposition of age periods. The sense of continuity of the developmental process has nevertheless been maintained. All social workers