DISCOVERY 



137 



SOME BOOKS ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 



Studies in Psycho-analysis. By Professor C. Baudoin. 



Translated by E. and C. Paul. (Allen & Unwin, 



125. 6d.) 

 Conditions of Nervous Anxiety. By Dr. W. Stekel. 



(Kegan Paul, 25s.) 

 The Omnipotent Self. By Paul Bousfield, M.R.C.S., 



L.R.C.P. (Kegan Paul, 55.) 

 The Psychology of Self-consciousness. By Julia Turner, 



B.A. (Kegan Paul, 6s. 6d.) 



Professor Freud's theories have undergone a consider- 

 able development since they were first propounded by 

 him some eighteen years ago, and in particular some of 

 the earlier conceptions were found to be a little too narrow 

 as more psychological material was brought under survey, 

 and they were accordingly modified or expanded. But 

 there are a number of psychologists who feel that the 

 Freudian theories, even as they stand to-day, are, in some 

 respects, too limited and rigid, holding good in many cases 

 but not universally applicable. 



Professor Baudoin, writing with great moderation, and 

 supporting his views with an accumulation of evidence 

 from his practice, suggests that an expansion of certain 

 of Freud's theories would make them more widely applic- 

 able. He suggests, for example, that Freud's formula, 

 that the dream is a manifestation of a repressed wish, 

 may be broadened into " the dream manifests the (sym- 

 bolical) realisation of an unsatisfied tendency." It is, 

 however, in practice rather than theory that Professor 

 Baudoin departs most widely from the Freudian school, 

 since he advocates the use of auto-suggestion as an acces- 

 sory to psj'cho-analysis in the treatment of nervous 

 disorders. 



One of the chief difficulties in the use of psycho-analysis 

 as a method of treatment lies in the length of the process, 

 and every practitioner of the method is on the alert to 

 discover a means of shortening it. Freud himself is not, 

 apparently, intolerant of the combination of other methods 

 with his o\vn, but his followers are often plus royaliste 

 que le roi in their insistence upon a purity of technique. 

 The method of auto-suggestion is at least free from many 

 of the disadvantages (such as dependence upon the 

 operator, etc.) that attach to hypnotism and to direct 

 suggestion by the physician, and in Professor Baudoin's 

 hands it seems to have produced valuable results in 

 helping the patient towards a new attitude after an under- 

 standing of his trouble has been secured by analysis. 



Freud, in the pioneer work of psycho-analysis, divided 

 the instincts into two groups, the sexual and the self- 

 protective (the ichtriebe) and, for certain good reasons, 

 devoted himself chiefly to the study of the former. 

 Professor Baudoin urges that more clinical application 

 should be made of the work that has been done upon the 

 separate self-protective instincts as by Adler, Ribot, and 

 the late Dr. Rivers, and he reminds us that the sexual 

 instinct is not the only one that is liable to be repressed by 

 the conditions of modern civilisation. His book is written 

 principallv for the practitioner, for whom it should prove 

 a very valuable addition to the fundamental textbooks. 



Dr. Stekel joins issue with Freud upon a purely technical 

 question, that of the causation of the " anxiety neurosis." 

 Dr. Stekel holds, very emphatically, that a psychological 

 factor is the principal cause, and that it is not due, as 

 Freud states, to relative sexual deprivation. But cases 

 of anxiety in which no psychological factor is discoverable 

 are comparatively rare, and become rarer the more closely 

 they are investigated, as even the most orthodox of 

 Freud's followers admit, so that Dr. Stekel's heresy is not 

 a very important one. 



Dr. Stekel does good service in pointing out that many 

 cases of anxiety neurosis resemble, and are liable to be 

 mistaken for, organic disorders of the heart, stomach, 

 etc. ; but unfortunately his book is not distinguished by 

 any great clarity of thought or close reasoning. He 

 gives, for example, three definitions of " anxiety " that 

 are not easily reconcilable (pp. 4 and 24), and on p. 37 

 summarises one of his cases (in apparent contradiction to 

 his theory) as " a case of anxiety resulting from sexual 

 abstinence." Dr. Stekel writes for the medical profession, 

 and intends his book to be " an introduction to psycho- 

 therapy," a purpose for which it appears to be far too 

 specialised and one-sided. 



Dr. Bousfield points out, in the introduction to a small 

 book on The Omnipotent Self, that many undesirable 

 character traits, such as self-importance, irritability, over- 

 sensitiveness, etc., have been found amenable to psy- 

 chological treatment ; in the book itself he takes for his 

 theme " Narcissism " (which is roughly self-love) as being 

 the commonest and most powerful cause of these faults 

 of character, and he traces its development from largely 

 avoidable factors in the child's education and environ- 

 ment. Apart from certain slightly dogmatic expressions 

 of personal opinion. Dr. Bousfield follows the main lines 

 of the Freudian theories, and it is presumably for the sake 

 of simplicity that he gives no indication that the views 

 he puts forward are not universally accepted. 



In The Psychology of Self-consciousness Miss Turner 



sees the whole mental life of the normal individual in 



terms 6f a conflict between the will to power and the 



tendency to " expiation." The explanation given of the 



universal validity of this theory is not very easy to follow, 



especially as very little evidence is brought forward to 



support it, but, so far as we can understand it, the conflict 



here described does not seem to differ from certain aspects 



of the particular conflict between the sexual impulse and 



the ego impulses that are fully dealt with in the standard 



works on psycho-analysis. 



F. A. H. 



Fundamentals of Biochemistry in Relation to Human Physi- 

 ology. By T. R. Parsons. (Heffer, los. 6d. net.) 

 The science of that aspect of chemical change which 

 is peculiarly associated with life is daily assuming greater 

 importance. With so young a branch of knowledge it 

 is inevitable that the subject has to a great extent to 

 be studied in original papers, not always accessible — and 

 too frequently rather unintelligible — to the learner. 

 The author — who writes from Cambridge, one of the 

 chief homes of the science in England — has written 



