138 



DISCOVERY 



the adolescent girl in particular, and a general review of 

 the development of the sexual impulse as a preoccupj-ing 

 influence in the life of man, looking forward finally to a 

 time when it shall become less fulminatingly masculine 

 and, approacliing the feminine ideal, shall irradiate a new 

 and less competitive civihsation. 



In the crise d'adolescoice of the girl the author sees a 

 conflict between the racial instincts on the one hand, 

 urging her towards the goal of womanhood and the self- 

 abnegation and sacrifice that it exacts, and, on the other, 

 the egocentric impulse that demands a free expression for 

 her personality ; a conflict often biased by what Freud 

 regards as the causa caiisatis oiit, the difficulty of breaking 

 free from the infantile attachment to one of the parents. 

 This seems a very reasonable view so far as it goes, but 

 adolescence is a difficult time for boys as well as for girls, 

 and one is inclined to look for an underlying factor com- 

 mon to both sexes. Jung and especially' Nicoll have 

 pointed out that at adolescence, as at other periods of 

 transition, there is frequently a reluctance to adopt the 

 new attitude towards life, to leave the old and known and 

 to accept what is virtually a new personality. This seems 

 to spring from a deep source of inhibition and to merit 

 rather more consideration than the author has given it. 



For the difficulties of a woman's life the author lays 

 much blame upon man, who has exploited her innate 

 tendency to renunciation and, when she endeavours to 

 escape, has infected her with his ideals of power and 

 domination. These arrows of criticism have been aimed 

 at man, usually with more venom and less precision, 

 tolerably frequentlj' of late years, and this is no place to 

 make an apologia for him, yet it may be ventured that 

 the great wave of introversion that is affecting the psy- 

 chology of the \\'estern nations, and is possibly less 

 marked on the other side of the Atlantic, is beginning to 

 modify the " will to power " masculine type that Dr. 

 Blanchard describes, and tending to diminish a little the 

 mutual antagonism of the sexes. 



One chapter is devoted to the practical question of 

 education and the means of sublimating the primitive 

 energy liberated at puberty, and at the same time provid- 

 ing a channel of self-expression, in literature, art, and social 

 activity, and by more humanistic metliods of teaching. 



Dr. Blanchard writes a firm, clear prose, and her book 

 should appeal to the general reader as well as to the special- 

 ist in education. F. A. H. 



Morbid Fears and Compulsions. By Professor H. W. 

 Frink, M.D. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., 

 Ltd., 2IS.) 



Dr. Frink tells us in a foreword that the present 

 volume is intended as a general introduction to a second 

 one in which morbid fears and the compulsion neurosis 

 will be discussed from a therapeutic and more technical 

 standpoint. The title of the book does not, therefore, give 

 a very fair idea of its scope, since more than half of it is 

 devoted to an exposition of the doctrines of the Freudian 

 school of psychology. 



Dr. Frink writes primarily for the physician, and there- 

 fore tends to present psycho-analysis rather in its applica- 



tion to morbid psychology than as a method of investigat- 

 ing the human mind or as a system of philosophv ; but 

 the reader will find in the first part of the book what 

 might be called a good working guide to the Freudian 

 psychology ; the more academic features are omitted and 

 some of the later developments are not dealt with, but 

 many misconceptions are cleared away and the author 

 does good service in explaining what is not meant by the 

 " Qidipus complex " and other much abused and mis- 

 understood terms. 



It is perhaps unfortunate that certain theories which 

 are by no means self-evident are stated almost axiomati- 

 cally, as when the author says that " the masochistic 

 partial impulse furnishes the motive for obedience," and, 

 a little later, " the primitive sexual curiosity thus becomes 

 a desire for general knowledge," these instances are the 

 more important since the principle to which they refer, 

 namely, the evolution of the higher social instincts from 

 the sexual impulse, is one of the points of Freud's teaching 

 that has been most strongly criticised, and to present such 

 a theory axiomatically is to give the impression, which 

 reference to the original sources would show to be incor- 

 rect, that it is not supported by evidence. Such a method 

 of presentation has the advantage of simplicity and seems 

 to be common among the expositors of psycho-analysis, 

 but it obscures the fact that Freud constructed his 

 theories, tentatively for the most part, upon an acciimu- 

 lation of evidence, and it gives the impression that they 

 have assumed a greater fixity and rigidity in the ininds 

 of liis followers than is perhaps altogether warranted in 

 view of the existence of alternative theories and explana- 

 tions. 



The later part of the book is of great value from the 

 point of view of practical therapeutics, for it gives what is 

 seldom possible in a textbook — a detailed analysis of 

 two cases. The first case is especially useful, for in it the 

 author demonstrates the important part played by non- 

 sexual factors in the causation of a neurosis — factors 

 that are admitted by the Freudian school to have their 

 importance, but, as Dr. Putnam hints in a sympathetic 

 but critical preface, are sometimes apt to escape recogni- 

 tion. F. A. H. 

 The Technique of Psycho-analysis. By D.wid Forsythe, 

 M.D., D.Sc, F.R.C.P. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Triib- 

 ner & Co., Ltd., 55.) 

 The term " psycho-analysis " applies by right of 

 priority to the methods employed by the Freudian school 

 of psychology for investigating the mental processes and, 

 if strictly used, it does not cover the theory and practice 

 of those other schools of psychology that have developed 

 out of the original teachings of Professor Freud. Dr. 

 Forsythe's book is therefore, as its title implies, a descrip- 

 tion of the methods to be employed in putting the teach- 

 ings of the Freudian school into practice. 



It is written for those of the medical profession who are 

 practising, or thinking of practising, psycho-analysis, and 

 the latter are warned that they will find it neither easy nor 

 lucrative. It naturally presupposes that the reader is 

 already acquainted with the theoretical aspect of the 

 subject. 



