Includes bibliographies and index.

I. Childhood and the modalities of social life : 1. Relevance and relativity in the case history: A neurological crisis in a small boy: Sam ; A combat crisis in a marine. -- 2. The theory of infantile sexuality : Two clinical episodes ; Libido and aggression; Zones, modes, and modalities: Mouth and senses ; Eliminative organs and musculature; Locomotion and the genitals ; Pregenitality and genitality ; Genital modes and spatial modalities.

II. Childhood in two American Indian tribes : 3. Hunters across the prairie : The historical background ; Jim ; An interracial seminar ; Sioux child training : Birth ; Getting and taking ; Holding and letting go ; "Making" and making. The supernatural : The sun dance ; Vision quest ; Summary ; A subsequent study. -- 4. Fishermen along a salmon river : The world of the Yurok ; Yurok child psychiatry ; Yurok child training ; Comparative summary.

III. The growth of the ego : 5. Early ego failure: Jean -- 6. Toys and reasons : Play, work, and growth ; Play and cure ; The beginnings of identity : Play and milieu ; Son of a bombardier ; Black identity. -- 7. Eight ages of man : Basic trust vs. basic mistrust ; Autonomy vs. shame and doubt ; Initiative vs. guilt ; Industry vs. inferiority ; Identity vs. role confusion ; Intimacy vs. isolation ; Generativity vs. stagnation ; Ego integrity vs. despair ; An epigenetic chart.

IV. Youth and the evolution of identity : 8. Reflections on the American identity : Polarities ; "Mom" ; John Henry ; Adolescent, boss, and machine -- 9. The legend of Hitler's childhood : Germany ; Father ; Mother ; Adolescent ; Lebensraum, soldier, Jew -- 6. A note on Jewry. -- 10. The legend of Maxim Gorky's youth : The land and the mir ; The mothers ; Senile despot and cursed breed ; The exploited : Saint and beggar ; The stranger ; Fatherless gang and legless child ; The swaddled baby. The Protestant . -- 11. Conclusion: beyond anxiety.

Psychotherapy is still an inexact science. It deals primarily with human anxiety in both its physical and emotional aspects. This textbook considers psychotherapy from a Freudian point of view. Three basic concepts are discussed: childhood and the modalities of social life, with particular emphasis on childhood in 2 American Indian tribes; growth of the ego; and youth and the evolution of identity. Case studies illustrate various aspects of the basic concepts. Case studies vary in length from a few pages to several chapters.

"Combining the insights of clinical psychoanalysis with a new approach to cultural anthropology, Childhood, and Society deal with the relationships between childhood training and cultural accomplishment, analyzing the infantile and the mature, the modern and the archaic elements in human motivation. It was hailed upon its first publication as "a rare and living combination of European and American thought in the human sciences" (Margaret Mead, The American Scholar). Translated into numerous foreign languages, it has gone on to become a classic in the study of the social significance of childhood."--Amazon book description.