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The author calls himself an eclecticist in the field of psychopathology. Although his approach is broadly psycho-analytical he finds some of Jung's and Adler's formulations useful. He claims that some of the views which he presented in the first edition of this book in 1939 are now less at variance with current psycho-analytical theory than they appeared to be at the time. Dr. Dicks is not one of those free-lance psycho-analysts who regard lack of official training an advantage. He stresses the need for brief psychotherapy on psycho-analytical lines, but he emphasizes that those are best fitted for short psychotherapy who have served their apprenticeship as psycho-analysts. He discusses the psychopathology of anxiety states, phobias, hysteria, obsessional states, perversions and drug addiction with the aid of short illustrative case histories. He regards the various forms of psycho-neurosis as merely different ways in which the feeling of infantile anxiety is being countered. The first two years of life, when the infant's dependence on the mother is at its height, are the critical period in the development of the personality. The anxiety state is regarded as the basic and the least complicated of the psychoneuroses. Its essence is the regressive reanimation of early infantile anxieties which are inherent in the instinct of self-preservation. The tendency to seek love and security, which is regarded as independent of the sexual instinct, stems from the instinct of self-preservation. In hysteria the author is most impressed by the patient's tendency to dominate the environment in order to remain independent. This tendency is found to conflict with the demands of the sexual instinct. (Here the author follows Suttie and Hadfield.) The Oedipus situation is crucial because it tends to activate infantile anxieties. Phantasies of deprivation of love fused with hatred underlie sexual perversions. In discussing character traits Dr. Dicks again follows Hadfield