You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This book presents to the lay reader an account of the disorders of personality, their origin and treatment.
The work falls into three parts. The first deals with emotional development from birth to maturity, and with the further adjustments thereafter until old age is reached. The second, clinical, part is devoted to accounts of the various forms of emotional maladjustment, neuroses, psychosomatic disorders and psychoses. In the third and final part the problems of treatment are discussed.
The book is a readable and succinct exposition of its subject. In the clinical section added interest is provided by a number of illuminating cases which are briefly described, though it is felt that these could have been fuller, as could also the sections dealing with the psychiatric disorders of the pre-adult years. In the chapter on treatment little mention is made of the very considerable amount of work being done in the psycho-analytic treatment of the psychoses, and the reader is left with the impression that physical methods of treatment (insulin coma and electro-shock) are the only ones available in these conditions.
There is a useful bibliography which might have been expanded with advantage.