BOOK NOTES

A Grammar of Dreams by David Foulkes. New York: Basic Books, 1978, xvii, 460pages, $20.00.

This is an important book. It represents a major effort at theory building and the development of empirical method in dream research. Foulkes draws on psychoanalytic and cognitive psychologies, laboratory studies, structuralism, linguistics, psycholinguistics--even Soviet psychology--to formulate a precise empirical method and theory. The approach is fundamentally cognitive, and the method empirical and mathematically analytical (in new and suggestive ways). Even so, the key insights and outlines of Foulkes's theory are remarkably continuous with Freud's original intuitive insights of eighty years ago. Not incidentally, this book also can serve as an excellent, readable source of current information and theory about dreams.

The Broken Taboo: Sex in the Family by Blair and Rita Justice. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1981, 304 pages, $Z95.

Incest is a form of child abuse, and like other forms, is probably more pervasive and important than commonly recognized, even among pastors and other professionals. Certainly its occurrence is not restricted to rural, lower class, or unsophisticated populations, or to severely pathological personalities, as popular stereotypes suggest. This book, while written for the general public, could be usefully thumbed-through by the pastor. It touches on many facets of the problem in a readable but knowledgeable and responsible way, drawing on psychological, sociological, and cultural perspectives, as well as offering practical suggestions and guidelines for parents, and policy suggestions for law and government. Though not explicitly professional in its aims, this book's facts and concerns deserve consideration by pastors and other moral and religious leaders.

Pastoral Psychology, VoL 30(4}, Summer 1982 202 0031-2789/81/1300-0202502.75 © 1982 Human Sciences Press

Book Reviews 203

Biblical Perspectives on Death by Lloyd Bailey. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979, xiv, 159pages, $6.95.

Primarily a survey and analysis of biblical material, this fine little book includes a helpful overview of nonbiblical traditions of the ancient Near East and brief but pertinent and insightful implications for contemporary ethics, culture, psychology, and ministry. Bailey emphasizes the range and richness of the Bible's views of death, and its remarkable acceptance of death in the scheme of life (especially in the Old Testament) as compared with other ancient cultures. Bailey contends that current pastoral-liturgical practice, even in its reforming and progressive modes, operates with a far too narrow conception of the biblical witness, and that contemporary beliefs about the universality of death-fear in human experience are shown to be exaggerated and perhaps unwarranted by Israel's remarkably accepting attitude toward this inescapable fact of life.

Rodney Hunter, Ph.D. Book Review Editor