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The author's previous books The War in the Mind and Deep Analysis have been addressed mainly to the lay public. This book, however, is explicitly addressed to 'the learned doctors'. The first half of the book contains mainly case histories and consists of four sections: 'From Medicine to Mind', 'The Problem of Anxiety', 'The Hysterias', 'Some more severe illnesses'. The author's classification of the Hysterias is unusual—hypochondriasis and drug addiction appear in the section of hysteria; and phobias are not even mentioned. Under the more severe illnesses, there are chapters on Epilepsy and Hystero-epilepsy, Obsessional Neurosis, Depression, Mania, Schizophrenia, Psychopathic Personalities and Paranoia, and on the psychopathology of schizophrenia and other disorders.
The long fifth section is on treatment and discusses drug treatment, convulsive treatment, insulin treatment and prefrontal leucotomy. There are three chapters on general psychological methods of treatment, six chapters on Psycho-Analysis (two on technique, two on the Theory of Psycho-Analysis, one on Transference Analysis and one on 'Terminal Stage').
Most of the clinical chapters are in the form of one or two case histories. The patient reveals in his own language the history and the psychopathology of the disease, and the author from time to time makes remarks designed to obtain further associations. At the end of each chapter is a summary of the psychopathology of the case and generalizations. The author writes vividly and each case becomes alive before us so that we see both the physician and the patient at work.
Freudian terminology is used and the author defends violently what he describes as the Freudian theory of the neuroses and psychoses—namely, that their ætiology is exclusively 'sexual'. In contrast to Freudian libido theory he stresses much less the oral, anal, etc., aspects. 'Sexual' to the author seems to be mainly genital. Whether he discusses a case of hysteria, hypochondrias