Reviews

"Dr. Anna Aragno has taken us back to basics...She asks how the Freudian edifice, tacitly steeped in the mechanisms of symbolization, can meet new challenges and old criticism. She masterfully explores the Freudian and post-Freudian models of mind and thought and strips away what is unnecessary...offering a non-energic modern theory of psychoanalytic symbolization based on a developmental structure. She thus integrates what is known about the development of mentation with the art and practice of the understanding of meaning in psychoanalysis. "This is a definitive and scholarly examination of the psychoanalytic theory of the symbolizing mind enriched by Dr. Aragno's broad knowledge of philosophy and developmental cognitive psychology. Dr. Aragno's integrative and creative use of what is known provides us with a psychoanalytic model of symbolism for the next century. -Theodore Shapiro, M.D. ______________________________________________________________________ In this impressive, comprehensive, and scholarly work, Dr. Aragno builds upon ideas in psychology and psychoanalysis, linguistics, and neuroscience to construct a model of mind to replace Freud's physicalistic-mechanistic model....proposing a developmental theory of the symbolizing process. In his dream book Freud focused on the product of symbolization but did not develop a theory of the process of symbolizing; Aragno's work fills that gap. For the psychoanalyst who ponders the verities of human nature, as Freud did, this well-written book is a must. -George Frank, D.S.W Aragno's argument is built on solid scholarship and epistemological sophistication. It will become must reading for everyone who is trying to navigate in today's often murky psychoanalytic pluralistic waters. ----Arnold D. Richards, M.D. Undoubtedly this work will evoke much discussion. It will lead to a re-examination of traditional concepts on the nature of the clinical process... and, most important, the nature of therapeutic change. For some, it will be provocative, for all, evocative, but it is a work that a thoughtful and informed...practitioner of the clinical process cannot neglect. -Norbert Freedman, Ph.D