O True Apothecary

Reviews the book, Drugs in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy by Mortimer Ostow (1962). This book utilize the thesis that one major mode of operation of the drugs is to modify psychic energy. In this book this thesis has been excitingly utilized to expand the scope of psychoanalytic theory by systematically developing the second of Freud's general concerns (psychoenergetics). In summarizing the other two areas (psychodynamics and psychotopology) the author distilled statements are almost aphorisms. The knowledge gained from manipulation of psychic energy by use of the drugs forces certain revisions of traditional psychodynamics. The author's attempt to relate the psychoanalytic to the neurological universes of discourse does nothing but confuse me. Much of the information in this area is stimulating but not productive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)