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In twenty-two chapters the author gives an extract of the present day clinical psychiatry, its classification and symptomatology. Chapters 1 to 3 deal with the human personality, with the different psychological types and the normal individual. In addition, the various schools and theories are mentioned in the usual oversimplifying textbook manner. Borderline conditions and disorders form the contents of the chapters 4 to 9. The functional and organic psychoses are then discussed, followed by the symptomatic disturbances, hormonal pathology and bacterial infections. The material is highly condensed and includes even a discussion of differential diagnoses and therapeutic procedures.
The author is a Ph.D. and an associate professor of education at the University of Notre Dame. His Catholic training comes to view at different places in the book, especially in his discussion of psychotherapy. The 'science of ethics' and strictly moral conduct are recommended as the basis for determining the question of what is normal. 'Confession and the reception of the sacraments are indispensable aids to the sincere efforts of correcting character defective in regard to such an urge as that of sex.' And 'the vicious sex habits must be broken'. This religious attitude makes the book colorful but not colorful enough to cope with the pallor and dryness from which it suffers.
Textbooks of abnormal psychology, written by Ph.D.s, all too frequently lack the immediateness of clinical experience which, in my opinion, cannot be replaced by either interest in the subject, zest for teaching or by industrious intelligence. They strike us like reviews of books but not like books themselves. The present work is no exception.