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The author is Professor of Psychology at the University of Oslo. As psycho-analysis has not yet penetrated far in the northern countries it is interesting to see that it nevertheless receives considerable attention in this book.
The book, evidently written by a very competent hand, is mainly divided into four parts: (I.) Original Equipment (of the mind, senses, instincts, etc.). (II.) The Mnemic Functions (ideas, memory and feelings). (III.) The Personality and its Conflicts. (IV.) The Practical Application of Psychology.
In the third section the theory of complexes is described in connection with the problems of feeling, and the author defends Freud's theory of free association against the criticism that such association must always finally reach a complex even when it is actually unconnected with the starting-point. The author (or perhaps the translator) uses the word 'subconscious' in this connection instead of 'unconscious', but insists that the processes in question are dynamically active.
The greater part of the third section is taken up with psycho-analytical topics: ego-ideal, repression, sublimation, flight into neurosis, dreams, symbolism, defence mechanisms—all receive a very fair and adequate, though inevitably condensed, consideration.
The fourth section describes the application of psychology to medicine, pedagogics, law and economics. In the first of these sub-sections suggestion and psycho-analysis cover the whole ground. In the second subsection the author speaks favourably of the application of psycho-analysis to the problems of pedagogics, but he quotes only Pfister in this connection and does not seem to know of Melanie Klein's or Anna Freud's work.
The book, which was published in 1928, was translated into German by Dr. von Grünberg, of Berlin.