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In their introductory statement the authors say that their study is 'based upon data taken from the case records of the demonstration child guidance clinics in Los Angeles and Philadelphia … these clinics were primarily concerned with the practical aspects of diagnosis and treatment for children who presented problems of personality and behaviour.'
Child Guidance Clinics in America (as in England) do not appear to be staffed with people who are familiar with the psychology of the unconscious, and this investigation, therefore, ignores many important considerations and puts forth some curious theories. One might ask why the division into 'problems of personality, ' and 'problems of behaviour' should be made, since the latter can only arise out of the former, and why, in dealing with 'personality' difficulties, should a tabled list of this kind be drawn up? Mental conflict, day-dreaming, inferiority feelings, egocentric, seclusive, inadequate, emotional, fearful, adolescent instability, neurotic: this is one table, and it seems impossible to make rhyme or reason out of it; the various attributes overlap; sometimes a cause is indicated, sometimes its result, both named side by side and equally evaluated; manifest aspects are not differentiated from more fundamental ones, and the result is confusion. The same situation occurs in respect of the table of 'behaviour' difficulties; here we read of stealing, lying, sex-experiences, truancy, disobedience, running away, speech-defects, enuresis, temper-tantrums, fighting, bullying. But psycho-analysts are aware that 'stealing' and 'running-away, ' for instance, may be the same behaviour in differing form; so 'lying' and 'speech-defects, ' 'sex-difficulty' and 'enuresis, ' and so on. What scientific enquiry can be carried out with this haphazard reference-table is indeed hard to see.
No account is taken of psycho-analysis in the book.