This little book is essentially a research monograph. It is solid yet at the same time baffling and elusive. Conceptually worthwhile, it reports the ketosteroid and hydroxycorticosteroid changes over a considerable period of time in seven women undergoing psychoanalysis, attempting to correlate these changes with phases in the analyses. The researchers have a clear and valid methodological approach, and, unaware of the pitfalls and complexities, recognize that their research falls short of yielding the correlates they seek.
Yet the title is misleading, for this work does not fulfill its promise of enlarging the reader's understanding of psychosomatic gynecological disorders, but focuses on seven case histories in which secondary amenorrhea, premenstrual tension, and frigidity were presenting symptoms of serious personality disorders. The rather general and incomplete case reports (in contrast to the excellent and detailed steroid studies) are presented strictly in the opaque language of classical psychoanalysis, often expressing only the