account for as much of the conceptual life as the author would have us believe. Freud, Jung and Adler all allow for the same antithesis, in their differing terminology, which obscures much of their convergence while accenting their divergence. The author's addition to the already much reduplicated terminology is a little unfortunate. If she would work out her power-expiation antithesis in terms of Freudian theory, she would throw some light on the ego-psychology, which would be more easily co-ordinated with known facts, than the present terminology allows. The author thinks she is in opposition to Freud much more frequently than is actually the case owing to her misinterpretation or ignorance of much of Freud's later work. For example she states that according to Freud there is only one dynamic principle in the unconscious, the sexuality wish. She adds that he ignores the fact that "there is already conflict in the unconscious, the self-condemnatory motive is as truly and fundamentally endopsychic as the self-pleasing one." She in turn, ignores the fact that Freud postulates conflict between the ego and the sex instincts, the depths of the ego being for him in the still little explored unconscious. Further, the 'selfcondemnatory' motive is one of these ego-instincts. Freud has recently found it necessary to transpose this 'masochistic' tendency from its earlier supposed position among the libidinous impulses, to a place among the ego-instincts. He concludes now that it is primary, not secondary as he held previously1. The reviewer had also been led to make the same transposition independently a few months before Freud's work on the subject appeared. The author would do well to master Freud's metapsychology, which she would find more illuminating than she anticipates.

Similar examples of misconstruction of Freud can be multiplied indefinitely. The author, however, has reached many conclusions supported by the 'wellknown and rightly to be dreaded' Freudian doctrine; though she frequently thinks she is refuting the latter.

In dream analysis, as is well known; the analyst sees only through complexes he has unravelled previously in himself. This may account for the fact that the author deals only with one kind of dream out of the many kinds Freud and others have discovered.

Her treatment of transference, symbolism, the Oedipus complex and the introvert-extrovert antithesis does not seem adequate or even accurate. Perhaps a fuller acquaintance with the work of others on similar lines, much of which she has not grasped, would have been of benefit to the author in the development of her original and interesting ideas.

ALICE G. IKIN.

Our Unconscious Mind and How to Use It. By FREDERICK PIERCE. London, 1922. Kegan Paul & Co. pp. 323. Price 10s. 6d.

Mr Pierce has accepted, with an enviable facility, the theories of psychoanalysis, auto-suggestion, and endocrinology. Those of us who are perturbed by the claims of rival schools may, or may not, find all doubts settled when we read (p. 133) that the psychology of the unconscious is "based soundly on the physiology of the autonomic system, the involuntary and voluntary muscular systems, and the endocrine chemistry," and the clinician must in some respects admire the man who without a word of doubt-or even explana1 Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, p. 70.

tion-diagnoses "pituitro-thyroid variation" or "pituitary variance and adrenal sufficiency." Even the magisterial bench, from which there still occasionally comes, in reply to a psychological plea, a variant of the well-worn phrase "Yes, that's the disease I am here to cure," may hope to carry out its therapeutic duties if it will follow the lead given by Mr Pierce when he writes that "Pathological lying and stealing, for example, are frequently associated with pituitary or thyroid excess or insufficiency, and correction of these glands may result in a tractable, happy child, with fine mental ability." But perhaps there is a subtlety here, for the writer does not tell us how the pituitary is to be corrected, nor how thyroid excess is to be clinically dealt with. In the absence of this knowledge his statement bears the same relation to actuality as does the nursery jest about holding up a guinea-pig by its tail.

If the reader shares Mr Pierce's mood of certainty and optimism he will be exhilarated by the preliminary list of subjects, which starts with "control and operation of the will," includes "growing abler in place of growing older" and "raising successful children," and ends with "replacing personal opinion with exact knowledge, in merchandising, advertising and selling." With these aims there is no time to be wasted, and the reader must take in his stride the explanation that suggestion proceeds within the individual and is therefore finally auto-suggestion (one is tempted to apply this reasoning to the process of digestion, but it leads to physiological confusion), and that its working processes must be operative at the unconscious level which "from a nerve standpoint is synonymous with the involuntary system" (p. 103). He will, however, find himself away from the beaten track of accepted definitions when he gathers (pp. 115-6) that the wish for beauty is an unconscious affect of the Ego Maximation group. An apparently easy by-path leads round a difficult subject on page 168: when the child has "actually acquired habits of getting autistic pleasure from improper handling of its body" one should begin with "thorough enlightenment" and finally "implant frequently and regularly a series of progressive suggestions, and teach the child reflective autosuggestion." But we should be careful "not to emotionalize the situation or implant exaggerated fear"; the implantation of a modicum of fear seems permissible.

The final chapter on 'The New Psychology in Selling' opens out an appalling prospect, but provides a few hints for the defence such as: "Many a salesman has unwittingly 'wasted his sweetness on the desert air' by trying to sell his wares to a husband when he should have sold them to the wife.” And the man (technically known as an 'automobile prospect') who does not own a motorcar may profit by reading of the subtle ways in which he is to be attacked.

The writer is plainly a shrewd American business man, but one hopes that the English public will not regard as final his presentation of the uses of our unconscious mind.

MILLAIS CULPIN.

Conditions of Nervous Anxiety and their Treatment. By W. STEKEL. Authorized translation by ROSALIE GABLER. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. pp. 435. Price 25s. net.

Dr Stekel tells us in his preface to the English edition that this is the first volume of a work entitled Disturbances of the Impulses and the Emotions, of which seven volumes have already appeared in German. The completed work will comprise ten volumes. He states that this book was the cause of his

differences with Freud and explains that he split from him on the grounds of not being able to accept his differentiation of actual neurosis from psychoneurosis. Stekel states that every condition of morbid fear is psychically determined and also that he was unable to find the so-called neurasthenia of Freud at all.

The reader is struck by the enormous mass of clinical material Dr Stekel produces and perhaps one accustomed to the lengthy analytical technique is a little bewildered. He tells us, it is true, that much of the material was taken from private practice in general medicine, but in spite of this it is apparent that many of these extremely interesting cases have been cured by psychoanalysis, or psychanalysis as the author prefers to spell it. If the other nine volumes are to contain a corresponding amount of clinical matter, our conclusion that the pace has just been a little forced is perhaps not merely captious.

These little criticisms disposed of we are bound to say that the book is admirable from the general practitioner's standpoint. Much space is devoted to the commonplace diagnosis of organic conditions which the author has so frequently found to be the result of mental conflict.

Following the description of a case of agoraphobia cured during a single consultation, we find on p. 9 this significant and rather plaintive statement:

"After six months I heard from his family that he had given up his position and was entirely cured of his trouble. I do not know whether I shall ever see him again. And that is the strange thing about psychic cures; whereas in other successful cures the patients praise the doctor and are only too glad to recommend him to others, they preserve the strictest secrecy as regards their psychic cures, which they owe to the psycho-therapist."

On p. 11 Dr Stekel likens the psycho-therapist to a sympathetic priest and insists that he must be of priestly chastity and earnestness of purpose; but personality surely counts more than a code of morals in the practice of psychotherapy. On p. 218 we see something of Dr Stekel's psycho-analytical technique: "The physician...must sacrifice part of his personality, in that he confides in the patient and by making, in a sense, confessions of his own, facilitates confession for the patient." On p. 62 a case of neurotic dyspepsia is quoted as showing the necessity of correcting the origin of the anxiety or abnormal vita sexualis. The author gives this as not the only case in which brilliant results have been gained by such energetic procedure. The following is an extract from a short conversation in which, incidentally, no mention is made of any abnormal vita sexualis: "Will you promise me to follow out my directions accurately?" "Naturally, I always follow the doctor's orders scrupulously." "Good. Your hand upon it!" "Yes. Here is my hand!" "...for the next few weeks eat just what you have a fancy for, without troubling about any kind of diet." Dr Stekel describes his surprise and joy when the patient appeared four weeks later and showed such great improvement that at first he was not recognized.

Another case of hysterical vomiting is stated to have been cured at one sitting by psychanalysis (p. 92). It is, of course, superfluous to remark that such cases as these should not be advanced in support of even the technique known as psychanalysis.

In disputing Freud's libido theory Stekel believes the Great War to have proved conclusively that all neuroses are not merely disturbances of the sexual instinct (pp. 113, 320). He thinks that the war neurosis is always a matter of psychic conflict between self-preservation and military duty.

In Chapter xv, dealing with anxiety neurosis in children, the author gives

some very sound advice on sexual education and hygiene. He cannot accept the Freudian Oedipus complex in toto. Chapter XXXII is devoted to the psychic treatment of Epilepsy. It is stated that psychogenic epilepsy shows repressed criminal tendencies and that the fit is a substitute for crime, or for a sexual act; he finds that it may also symbolize guilt, punishment and dying.

In Chapter XXXVI occurs a curious contradiction regarding the necessity for passivity in the analyst: "We must not cross-examine the patient" (p. 408); but from his reports of cases it appears that Dr Stekel forgets his own advice. And on p. 423 we are told that the physician must not conduct the Freudian passive analysis, but that he must energetically correct false notions in his patient; synthesis must follow analysis. Six lines below this appears the following inconsistent remark: "The more passive the physician remains during the cure the greater the success." At the bottom of the same page the author says that in spite of successful psychanalytical treatment many patients complain to other doctors of its failure; he attributes this to the patients' desire for revenge on the physician who has not met their erotic demands. To the psycho-analyst this would appear to be special pleading to excuse the physician's failures which have probably resulted from his own too didactic method.

The author repeatedly affirms that neurosis is potential criminality and is a reaction from sinful desires.

In spite of many mistakes in translation and spelling the book is fluently written and makes most interesting reading.

ROBERT M. RIGGALL.

The Omnipotent Self. By PAUL BOUSFIELD, M.R.C.S. (Eng.), L.R.C.P. (Lond.). Kegan Paul & Co. pp. vii + 171. 5s. net.

It is possible that popular exposition, in small space, of some profound and complex theme, is always difficult to justify, and more certainly so if the ground has already been covered in a more adequate way. Dr Paul Bousfield's volume, The Omnipotent Self, hardly seems to serve any particular purpose, decidedly not the purpose put forward by himself in his Preface, since that is one incapable of fulfilment: "The first object I have in mind is that the work shall be lucid, concise, and readily understood by any person of ordinary education, so that he may gain an insight into the essential causes and growth of some of his abnormal characteristics without undue complication of ideas" (p. vi) (italics are Reviewer's). It cannot be too often or too strongly maintained that things which are complex and complicated do not cease to be so merely by ignoring the complications and complexities, and that persons who have little or no scientific training, especially of a psychological kind, are hardly likely to "gain insight into the essential causes and growth" of their abnormal characteristics (a procedure, be it noted, over which such a genius as that of Freud himself has spent years of laborious study) by the reading of a small book which is often inaccurate, partial, and dominated by a benevolent anyone can understand this" atmosphere. The curious concluding sentence, "without undue complication of ideas" creates a suspicion that the author is aiming at an undue simplification (hence, a falsification) of ideas, for how is it possible to dispense with "complication" when such is inherent in, and inevitable to the ideas themselves? The spread of inferior and superficial education, with the assistance of a still more inferior and superficial Press,

has most regrettably influenced what should be serious work in inducing writers, too often, to popularize and stultify their work-perhaps with a mistaken benevolence towards those who are not yet adequately equipped for the comprehension of a true presentation. Dr Bousfield's book demonstrates this false simplification abundantly, especially in the first section entitled 'The Omnipotent Self,' which is sub-divided into nine chapters, dealing with such themes as 'The Unconscious Mind,' (Ch. I), 'The Forces Shaping Character' (Ch. III), 'Determinism' (Ch. IV), Narcissism' (Ch. V), 'Identification' (Ch. VII), 'Rationalization' (Ch. IX), etc.--very important and interesting subjects, but the value of these chapters is much minimized by the amount of loose and inaccurate statement contained in them. On such matters as Intuition, Sex-differences, Identifications, Determinism, Phantasy, we get most curious statements, thrown out without any attempt at proof. Take for example the following: "Unconscious reasoning or intuition is found chiefly in those who have not been trained in subjects which induce and train logical conscious reasoning" (p. 17). (In passing, it might be recalled that the greatest scientists, men subjected to the highest and most systematic logical training, have always been conspicuous for intuition whereby they have evolved their scientific hypotheses such as Galileo, Darwin, Newton, et al.) Again: "On the whole women are more narcissistic than men...their Narcissism is encouraged...until differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes which in no way belong to nature but purely to our conventional and somewhat barbaric standpoint" (p. 81). One wonders how, if these differences "in no way belong to nature," they got themselves produced, since it is not to be supposed that a modern scientist like Dr Bousfield, believes in the agency of the Supernatural. Yet again we read: "The ordinary fairytale should be swept from the nursery: here the child does nothing but identify himself with the hero or heroine in the most impossible of situations of a purely phantastic type" (p. 71). The author of this statement should recall, firstly, that he himself proceeds later to a chapter on Identification in which he shows the necessity to the child for this process, and secondly that he claims to understand the complexities of the psyche and therefore should realize how inaccurate the above is: in phantasy-making many forces are at work, many impulses seeking gratification, and the account given above. ("the child does nothing but identify himself") is wholly inadequate. The handling of such themes as Phantasy, Identification, Determinism, seems to show little grasp of the real facts, as is also the case with some strange definitions given. Concerning Determinism we are told: "Determinism is the doctrine that all things, including the will, are determined by causes" (p. 41), which hardly seems enlightening, and further, that in all the examples of determinism given in 'The Psychopathology of Everyday Life' "one could not conceivably utilize free will in any case". a matter Freud "appears to have overlooked." The confusion of thought here revealed is apparent in many other instances. The second part of the book, 'Practical Applications,' contains some good and sensible advice, applied to conscious ideas and impulses, expressed in a bright and easy manner. If Dr Bousfield had set out to write the whole book on this level- —as a manual of common-sense precepts from an experienced physician-a more satisfactory result would have been achieved.

BARBARA LOw.