Psychology in Everyday Life: By Walter C. Varnum, Ph.D. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1938. 444 pp.

This is an adequate elementary textbook on psychology. It does not succeed in showing the student how he may apply the 'newer psychology' to his own personal problems as is stated on the dust cover to be one of the purposes of the book.

The author's approach to the dynamics and treatment of psychological maladjustment is a hash of Janet and Jacobson. Depth psychology is described briefly in terms of Adler's formulations although no reference is made to Adler's own books.

The author does a serious injustice to both the patient and the psychological consultant in failing to distinguish between the latter and the psychiatrist. It is true that by defining psychotherapy incorrectly as the treatment of minor nervous disorders he presumably limits the field of the psychological consultant. If the fact that a medical background is essential to the safe handling of psychiatric problems had been made clear to the student, the valuable services that can be performed by the clinical psychologist could have been less ambiguously presented.