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able whether this interpretation is always justifiable. A theory that gives a causal explanation only to human psychology, as a whole will naturally meet with opposition, which need not be regarded as pathological. On the other hand, Dr Long emphasises the importance of the work of Freud, whom she regards as one of the immortals, and points out the danger of excluding the sexual interpretations. She seems to incline to the view that a reductive sexual-objective analysis, carried to its extreme, produces a profound pessimism, which few can support with equanimity. To many the weight of the past becomes too overwhelming, as the principle of determinism is relentlessly developed to the exclusion of all possibilities of individual creative effort. This may prove to be an actual difficulty in the reductive technique, where the possibility of a prospective function of the unconscious must necessarily be neglected. Dr Long rejects the idea of the censor as defined by Freud as a real explanation of symbolism. She finds the conception of the censor a useful one, but she believes that Freud's lasting fame will not rest on either the retention or the overthrow of his theory of the censor. The wish-fulfilment aspect of the unconscious she accepts, but does not find the dream to be a result of the conflict between the wish-fulfilling unconscious and the censor. While for Freud the dream in its essence is a veil for repressed desires which are in conflict with the ideal personality, she finds herself in agreement with Jung when he observes that "the dream is in the first instance a subliminal picture of the psychological waking state of the individual." Instead of being only the fulfilment of a disguised wish, it is a universal means of primitive expression.

She finds natural danger in the tendency to give the dream symbols a more or less fixed value. "If it is decided a priori that practically all ideas symbolised are sexual, no other ideas will be sought or tolerated." A prolonged reductive analysis tends to make the patient jump to stereotyped conclusions concerning his dreams, so that the value of the symbol, and the whole idea of symbolism, becomes artificially contracted. The question of the objective and the subjective interpretation of the dream is discussed. The Zurich school has given the subjective interpretation of the unconscious material as an important contribution to the analytical work. In the subjective interpretation "all the rôles played by the people or things in the dream are regarded as expressions or tendencies or attitudes or views of the dreamer.... Both kinds of interpretation are valid. The one is analytical and leads down into the depths of the impulsive life. The other is synthetic and brings back from the depths the raw materials for the purpose of constructive life. This two-fold interpretation fits into the general scheme of life, because adaptation is itself two-fold, viz. to the inner subjective world of archaic reality and to the outer objective world of material reality."

Dr Long lays especial stress upon the value of phantasy. She quotes from Jung's book on psychological types (which is at present being translated into English): "Phantasy is the creative activity which gives birth to the answers to all questions admitting of answers. It is the mother of all possibilities, in which the inner and the outer world are united in a living whole. It was, and always is, phantasy which builds the bridge between the irreconcilable claims of the object and of the subject, of extraversion and introversion. In phantasy alone are both processes united.... What great thing has there ever been that was not phantasy first?... Every happy idea and every creative act had its beginning in imagination and in what we are accustomed to call childish

phantasy....The dynamic phases of phantasy lie in its playfulness, which is suitable to childhood and thus appears irreconcilable with serious work. Yet without this play of phantasy no creative work has ever seen life."

Phantasies, as a synthetic function, contain only the potential value. As phantasies alone, they remain worthless. Through a selective discrimination the valuable elements in the raw material can be led forward into a real application. Phantasies are both good and bad, but to reduce phantasies always to a sexual basis is to destroy the prospective or creative side that they contain. Dr Long finds in the unconscious a forward-reaching or prospective movement what might be called an evolutionary impulse which aims at the extension and development of the individuality and seeks to overthrow the regressive and fixed elements in the psychology. She shows that this movement towards individuation has much to do with the theme of re-birth, which recurs frequently in the dream material, and to which has been given too exclusively the interpretation of concrete incest. Such themes as the rebirth theme originate in a part of the unconscious that cannot be called personal. Dr Long, as has been already said, does not hold the view that the unconscious is produced only by repression in early life. To her the unconscious is pre-existent to the conscious mind. This part of the unconscious is related to the brain in so far as it is "an ancestral inheritance, and possesses the pre-formed instincts and archetypes of apprehension, which are present as potentialities of future thought and feeling. As consciousness emerges out of unconsciousness the mind climbs up the genealogical tree as the body has done, that is, its function becomes more and more differentiated." In connection with this idea she quotes a phrase of Jung's to the effect that the intellect is born out of mythology. 'As the child develops consciousness and his experience accumulates, the personal unconscious begins to come into existence.... In this view the personal unconscious is regarded as the acquisition of the individual's life, and is differentiated from the impersonal unconscious, which is an historical inheritance." She illustrates by giving an example of a dream concerning a dragon, pointing out that the dragon is a mythological image belonging to the impersonal unconscious. She gives many illustrations of the symbolism of the infantile personality in dreams, and the myths that are found in the unconscious concerning the fate of this element. Such interpretations are, of course, incompatible with the conception of the unconscious as being an infantile wish-fulfilment apparatus. Dr Long's work is extremely valuable. It is impossible to give a detailed discussion of each paper; the material is abundant and rich, and many excellent psychological portraits are drawn. Throughout the book there is a serenity and balance that is refreshing in these days of over-intellectualised or over-rationalised analytic publications.

66

MAURICE NICOLL.

Psychology and Psychotherapy. By WILLIAM BROWN, M.A. (Oxon.), D.Sc. (Lond.), Reader in Psychology in the University of London, etc. London: Edward Arnold, pp. xi + 196. 8s. 6d. net.

To those who have followed Dr Brown's contributions to the literature of the war neuroses, this book will be in large part familiar. In fact there is not a great deal which has not already been published. For all that the volume should be one of great value, and that for a number of reasons.

In the first place the author maintains an admirable attitude of independence in regard to the numerous theories of modern neurologists and psychopathologists. Freud and Jung, Dejérine and Babinski are all submitted to criticism which is sufficiently detached to be at least uncommon in these days of scientific partisanship. The true Freudian will no doubt be the most incensed, not only by the somewhat cavalier attitude which the author adopts towards the Freudian theory, but also by the use of the term psycho-analysis in a sense that is far from Freudian. In one passage for instance (p. 161) it is used as synonymous to autognosis. Now autognosis is a term coined by Dr Brown himself for a therapeutic measure that is certainly not identical with psychoanalysis. Furthermore, criticism is bound to be elicited from the Freudian ranks by Dr Brown's persistence in associating the phenomenon and theory of a breaction with Freud. As far as the theory of abreaction goes Freud-if my information is correct discarded it some years ago, just as he discarded hypnotic analysis.

In the second place this book should prove very helpful to practical psychotherapists for its statement of the various theories of the psychoneuroses. Considering the size of the book this section is most adequately and, as we have already said, impartially carried out. Of the multitude of books on psychopathology which have appeared in recent years, too many offer a theoretical explanation which is one-sided as well as dogmatic. The atmosphere of the psychological lecture room is quite useful in this section.

In the third place the book cannot fail to possess a distinctive value as a record of the war work of one of the few psychotherapists who, by reason of opportunity, skill and personality, "made good" during the war. But the discerning reader will not fail to recognise that the unquestioned success which attended Dr Brown's work at an advanced neurological centre during the war was due in far greater degree to affective therapeutic measures than to any procedure that could be described as analytical.

Part IV is devoted to "Lessons of the War." It occupies a quarter of the book and throughout it we constantly run across phrases such as "enthusiastic confidence in his doctor," "expectation of a complete recovery" (p. 132) and so on. Now the combination of affective and analytical methods must always remain at the very heart of the problem which the psychotherapist has to face. Both schools of analysts have recently adopted an attitude less uncompromising than their original one upon this point. Those who stand outside these two schools have always recognised frankly that suggestion in one form or another must have a place among our psychotherapeutic methods. It certainly has a very large place in Dr Brown's method, and though he is careful never to use the word "hypnosis" without the epithet "light" we must frankly confess that we are not greatly illuminated by all that he says on the subject. We see clearly that Dr Brown blended-some would say "mixed up"-affective and analytical methods with admirable results in practice, but he does not convey to us what we really do want to know above all things, and that is what criteria of mentality, symptoms or history does he associate with his use of analytical methods and affective methods. We find for instance on p. 131 the following statement: "For insomnia suggestion treatment at night is often very efficacious." No one will have any difficulty in accepting this statement, but would Dr Brown have us believe that the treatment of this one symptom by suggestion may be carried out without compromising in any way the prospects of a cure by analytical methods? Or again, do all these

patients whose insomnia Dr Brown treated successfully by suggestion come under the heading of hysterics? For we read on p. 126, "I agree entirely with Pierre Janet that only hysterical patients can be hypnotised." This is an ancient generalisation which has been controverted again and again by the most reputable psychotherapists who use hypnotic suggestion. Quite apart from the therapeutic value of hypnotism, no good can be done by making such a claim. If Dr Brown had said that he and Pierre Janet could only hypnotise hysterical patients, the critic might have been astonished, but could not have dissented.

Again, we should like to ask with all due respect what-if anything-is meant by the phrase on p. 119, "The mechanical processes of auto- and heterosuggestion"? And again, what is a "worry complex" (p. 77)? Surely this is the sort of useless phrase that we might expect an academic psychologist of Dr Brown's standing to avoid.

But these after all are minor points. If we were asked to make a general criticism of Dr Brown's system of psychotherapy, as described in this book, we should say that the author leaves us with the impression of having very successfully and very opportunely dealt with psychoneurotic breakdown in a vast number of cases. He appears to have obliterated symptoms most triumphantly: and that, no doubt, was what he was called on to do in his war work. But the business of psychotherapy in daily life makes a wider demand than this. We have to enable our patients to readjust their passions and desires so that a state of harmony both internal and external may be set up with some prospect of persistence. Dr Brown enumerates his four methods, which are psycho-synthesis, psycho-catharsis, autognosis and the personal influence of the physician. Of these only autognosis refers to the problem of readjustment. The two first have to do with re-association and the last is what the analysts call transference and the older hypnotists call rapport. It is with respect to autognosis that we feel some misgivings. The "long conversations" which appear to constitute its technique sound a trifle vague, and the patient's problem in life, apart from his immediate symptoms, appears to receive secondary consideration. But this may only be an impression which fuller knowledge of Dr Brown's methods in civilian and peace time work would dispel.

Finally the volume is one that every open-minded psychotherapist should read with great care, for though he may differ from many of Dr Brown's views he will not fail to profit from the account of the author's work in France, nor will he fail to be stimulated to fresh reflection on many problems by the lucid statement of the various theories which are current to-day.

H. CRICHTON MILLER.

A Young Girl's Diary. Prefaced with a letter by SIGMUND FREUD. Translated from the German by EDEN and CEDAR PAUL. London: George Allen and Unwins, Ltd., 1921. Price, 12s. 6d. net.1

The publishers are, I think, to be congratulated upon their boldness in issuing this volume. It tells, in her own colloquial phrases, how an Austrian girl acquired, during the years of puberty, a knowledge, more or less exact,

1 The publishers wish it to be stated that the sale of this book is restricted to such members of the educational, medical, and legal professions as are interested in psychology. J. of Psych. (Med. Sect.) I 23

of the chief biological facts of sex and family life. The book is at once autobiographical and anonymous. Unfortunately, the only information which the preface offers about the author is that she was "a young girl belonging to the upper middle class," writing, we gather, somewhere between the years 1900 and 1915. Much is thus left obscure. Her health, her ability, and her character, whether she was of a supernormal intellect, or of an abnormal temperament and disposition, these are circumstances that we are left to piece together from the style and statements of the diary itself; even the editor refrains from signing her name and from recording her scientific credentials. For such regrettable omissions diarist and editor (if, indeed, they are distinct individuals) are perhaps less to blame than the general attitude of the lay public towards explicit revelations and discussions, however innocent in their ultimate intention, of sex and sexual interests.

With all its shortcomings, however, the book still forms a valuable and suggestive document. To those who, whether teachers, physicians, or psychologists, happen already to have become acquainted with the inner mental life of one or two active and intelligent girls during the years of early adolescence, the pages that relate specifically to sexual physiology will bring little that is fresh or unfamiliar. The shocks, the conflicts, the secret experiences, the preposterous inferences and yet more preposterous gossip picked up from maidservants and school-fellows as misinformed as they are unscrupulous, these are vividly illustrated upon almost every page; but they are, or should be, by no means new to the psychologist of childhood. On the other hand, the reaction of such incidents upon the child's mind, the mode in which (as Freud puts it in his preface) "the mystery of sexual life first presses itself vaguely upon the attention, and then takes entire possession of the growing intelligence, so that the child suffers under the load of hidden knowledge, but gradually becomes enabled to bear the burden," above all, the subtler changes so induced in the child's personal attitude towards her father and mother, her brother and sister, her school masters and school mistresses, and her boy and girl acquaintances, all this is poignantly suggested. In particular, it is intensely instructive to watch the processes of suppression, repression, and complex-formation actually in operation, as it were, beneath our very eyes.

This being so, it is singularly unfortunate that we have no means for deciding how far the experiences recorded are really typical of the average child at school. In the publisher's note it is stated that the book is "not a work of fiction," but the "genuine and unedited diary of a young girl”; and it is added that "innumerable such diaries are probably written." Those who have made a scientific study of the mental processes and literary expression of school children will feel immediately that either one or the other of these statements must be untrue. Either the writing is the writing of an older person, or the child is a child of unusual ability and abnormal singleness of purpose. To the reflecting reader the earlier pages appear at first sight to be the composition, not of a girl of eleven or twelve, but of an older person deliberately recalling, as far as possible verbatim, her earlier thoughts and mental comments upon one exclusive problem. If this impression is wrong, and if these things were really written on the days on which they occurred, then we must conclude that the young girl possesses a fluency of writing and a power of explicit logical discussion that can be claimed by probably not one in five thousand children of the same age; and that the unity of interest with which, day after day and year after year, she keeps to the same central issue through almost every page

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