SOME OF THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF ABNORMAL 

 PSYCHOLOGY 



BY MORTON PRINCE 



[Morton Prince, Professor of Diseases of the Nervous System, Tufts College 

 Medical School, and Physician for Diseases of the Nervous System, Boston 

 City Hospital, b. Boston, Massachusetts, 1854. , A.B. Harvard University, 

 1875; M.D. ibid. 1879. Physician for Diseases of the Nervous System, Boston 

 Dispensary, 188186; Physician for Diseases of the Throat and Nose, Boston 

 City Hospital, 1882-85. Member of the Massachusetts Medical Society; 

 Boston Society for Medical Improvement; Boston Society of Psychiatry and 

 Neurology; Boston Society or Medical Sciences; Association of American 

 Physicians; American Neurological Association. Author of The Nature of 

 Mind and Human Automatism; The Dissociation of a Personality. Collaborator 

 in American System of Practical Medicine; and Nervous Diseases by American 

 Authors, etc.] 



To discuss the present problems of abnormal psychology without 

 acknowledging the debt we owe to the distinguished psychologist 

 who has addressed us to-day would be as impossible as it would be 

 ungrateful. One may be permitted to question whether a section 

 on abnormal psychology would have appeared upon the programme 

 of this Congress if Dr. Pierre Janet had not already gone before 

 and opened up this great field of investigation through his brilliant 

 researches. It is not too much to say that numerous as are the pro- 

 blems awaiting solution, there is scarcely one which has not already 

 been illumined by this investigator's penetrating observations. 



In our own country, too, we owe much to Boris Sidis, a patient 

 student and keen investigator of psychological problems, whose 

 researches in the dissociation of consciousness and genesis of hallu- 

 cinations have given precision to our conceptions of these abnormal 

 conditions. The time at my disposal will not allow me to refer by 

 name to the work of other students, though I cannot forbear calling 

 attention to the great impetus given to the study of this fascinating 

 field of research by the labors of Charcot and of the brilliant Sal- 

 pe"trire group of scholars who still love to call their old chief, Master. 

 Certain problems in subconscious automatism will always be asso- 

 ciated with the names of Breuer and Freud in Germany, and Alfred 

 Binet in France. It is encouraging to see the growing interest in 

 this field, and the increasing number of students who are pursuing 

 its problems. 



As a field of research abnormal psychology belongs both to the 

 psychologist and the physician. It has thrown much light on the 

 mechanism of normal mental processes, for disease dissects the 

 mind and brings into view the mechanism of its processes much 



