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By Peter Fletcher. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1939. 111 pp.
PASTORAL PSYCHIATRY. By John Sutherland Bonnell. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1938. 229 pp.
Healing of the sick by spiritual means has been a function of religion since its beginnings. The development of medical science brought an end to the responsibility of the church for the cure of physical disease, but treatment for mental problems has continued to be one of its activities. In connection with this fact it should be remembered that it was late in the nineteenth century before official medicine recognized the existence of purely psychogenic illness, and hence psychotherapy was previously denied a legitimate place in medical practice.
In recent times there have been attempts by the clergy to bring psychological science to the aid of strictly spiritual methods in dealing with those people in mental distress who turn to them for relief. In this country an outstanding example was the so called Emmanuel Movement, originating in Boston, which was at its height in popular interest some thirty years ago. More recently Freud's dynamic psychology and its derivatives have been welcomed by