This volume, by 34 authorities, is sponsored by the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, the organization developed by those who felt themselves hampered academically by the official body and who sought a free forum for interchange with all related disciplines and sciences. This work is one of the results.
Freud's original theories of instincts and libido, his "mythology," as Freud himself called it, appears as no longer adequate, and the oedipus complex loses its once-central importance. The editor believes that the long-range future will see the traditional psychoanalytic forms altered, the theory moving away from Freud's metapsychology toward a more common language with the behavioral sciences—adaptation, learning, communications, and informations theory; a search for common denominators and uniform theories of behavior within general systems theory; and integration of psychodynamics with neurophysiology and neuropharmacology, with the ultimate emergence of a basic science of dynamic psychology.
The presentation is divided into four sections,