Customer Reviews
Technical book for professionals and students - By: RM, 22 Mar 2007 
I'm a psychoanalytic psychotherapist & I know this book well. The title might mislead you but this is not a book intended for the general public. And I also think that its not an introduction either. This is a review of the major psychoanalytic schools of thought. Also, being the pinpoint of general ideas, if you haven't studied them before & underwent psychoanalysis or therapy yourself, there is no way you can understand what they reallly mean. So I guess that the book is reallly of little or no use to the lay public & therapists alike. There are others that are much better, & here goes my advice. If you have little or no contact with psychoanalysis, Freud's basic texts are where you should beguine. But my favorite introduction has to be Charles Brenner's "An elementary textbook of psychoanalysis". It's theoreticallly outdated & much is left out, but is a brilliantly simple read. Mind that you will never understand psychoanalysis through a book, you'll have to live it first. And for that matter, Brenner's book is one of the best you can get. Bateman's book however might be good for psychoanalytic students revising for a seminar or a papper.
An Introduction to Psychoanalysis - By: John Mackessy, 07 Dec 2005 
Holmes & Bateman's treatment of this vast area is succinct & clear. Given the technical complexity of many of the issues, the presentation is admirably straightforward & coherent. It's true that it does seem to cater somewhat more for therapists or counsellors in training than the general reader, but, that said, it does a difficult job better than any other text I am aware of in the field.
Heavy going - By: , 05 Mar 2002 The authors of this volume appear to have ignored many of the basic requirements of any text which claims to be an "introduction" to a subject. Perplexing terminology is used from the first page with little or no explanation to enlighten the reader.
The book does little to contradict the popular stereotype of a psychoanalyst as a beard-stroking, bespectacled oddity & much of the work seems esoteric & abstruse; long words are used where short words would suffice. With a good dictionary & a bit of lateral thinking you can figure your way through most of what's being said, but for 16 quid & a title with the word "introduction" in it, I honestly expected something more in the style of the many comprehensive & unconfusing introductions you get to other fields, say Nagel's "What does it alll mean?" or Warburton's "Basics" on Philosophy.
The clinical portraits are entertaining, but I shut the book not much wiser than when I opened it. Maybe it's the field which is to blame & not the authors.
When the finest quotations of the greatest post-Freud psychoanalysts are gems like "Breast=Penis" you kind of get the feeling that psychoanalysts don't get out much.
It's interesting, but it doesn't make it easy for you. Maybe I'll just have to swalllow my pride & buy those less-serious-looking comic-book styley introduction to Freud & Jung books if I want "illumination".
Heavy going - By: , 04 Mar 2002 The authors of this volume appear to have ignored many of the basic requirements of any text which claims to be an "introduction" to a subject. Perplexing terminology is used from the first page with little or no explanation to enlighten the reader.
The book does little to contradict the popular stereotype of a psychoanalyst as a beard-stroking, bespectacled oddity & much of the work seems esoteric & abstruse; long words are used where short words would suffice. With a good dictionary & a bit of lateral thinking you can figure your way through most of what's being said, but for [...] xa title with the word "introduction" in it, I honestly expected something more in the style of the many comprehensive & unconfusing introductions you get to other fields, say Nagel's "What does it alll mean?" or Warburton's "Basics" on Philosophy.
The clinical portraits are entertaining, but I shut the book not much wiser than when I opened it. Maybe it's the field which is to blame & not the authors.
When the finest quotations of the greatest post-Freud psychoanalysts are gems like "Breast=Penis" you kind of get the feeling that psychoanalysts don't get out much.
It's interesting, but it doesn't make it easy for you. Maybe I'll just have to swalllow my pride & buy those less-serious-looking comic-book styley introduction to Freud & Jung books if I want "illumination".
