PUAC'TICAL APPLICATIONS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY. 441 



selection rather than extensive statistics is demanded. The three 

 outstanding directions in which practical applications of psychology 

 have proved of inestimable benefit, and which therefore have been 

 chosen as examples for our present purpose, are the realms of 

 Medicine, Education, and Industry. 



Medicine. 



Space only permits of a brief synopsis of this section. 



The outstanding effects of psychological research on medical 

 practice are inost obvious in the recognition of the fact that many 

 common ailments as well as obscure functional disorders are due 

 to purely psychic causes ; in the facilitation of the diagnosis of 

 neurotic and psychasthenic cases by the employment of mental 

 analysis and hypnosis ; in the scientific use of suggestion in the 

 effective stimulation of affected nerves; and in the development — 

 by autognosis — of a sane outlook on the media of shocks and fears. 



The War, which brought to the fore the mis-styled " shell- 

 shock," also saw the appointment of consulting psychologists tO' 

 study and treat that disorder. Many of its phases were recognised 

 as identical with conditions met with in civil practice, and 

 psychiatry has consequently been increasingly used since the War. 

 Psychological methods of diagnosis have been responsible for 

 saving more than one man in the army from a coward's death, 

 and very many from the false charge of malingering. 



Hypnotism and analysis have been very fruitful in tracing 

 original causes of disorders, such as infantile shocks and fears 

 which — through adverse circumstances — have presented themselves 

 in the form of amnesia, hysteria, paraplegia, etc., possibly includ- 

 ing also a variety of psycho-genetic epilepsy. The " autognosis 

 consequent to analysis is possibly the most important factor in 

 the development and retention of mental stability. In the 

 increasing degree of suggestibility of patients, hypnotism holds an 

 unrivalled field; but it is too seldom employed scientifically — 

 although it is very often used, unconsciously, being in fact a 

 nine qua nan of effective " suggestion." The name is unfortunate, 

 for hypnotism does not imply the induction of sleep ; but is a 

 condition of deep involitional concentration of attention : what the 

 Nancy school of applied psychology call " contention." 



Perhaps the most important part of the treatment proper of 

 psycho-neurotic disorders may be described by the inclusive title 

 " re-education of the mind." This idea is based on the principle 

 that all disorders of this particular category are due to the inability 

 of the human organism to adapt itself to some particular circum- 

 stances or environment which are recognised as the " media " of 

 the disorder. For example, where it is found that an infantile 

 shock has produced some mal-functioning the psychologist 

 emphasises the obvious truth that it was not the " object 

 (media) of the shock which caused the malfunctioning, but the 

 inability of the organism to adapt itself to the demands of the 

 occasion. The occasion is not the cause. Mental instability can 

 also be produced by undue activity of one process of mentation 



