Gestalt Psychology. Its Nature and Significance: By David Katz, Ph.D. New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1950. 175 pp.

A comprehensive discussion of gestalt psychology is offered by the author. Especially rewarding to the nonacademic psychologist is the account of the origin of this school. The dissatisfactions with the older school of atomistic psychology and the trenchant criticisms of their doctrines are clearly described.

Gestalt contributions to the theory of perception, which form the bulk of its investigative work, are well delineated. The author points out that the gestalt psychologists, having taken form for their domain, have made it coextensive with the entire field of psychology. He criticizes this unwarranted procedure. He adds that '… it is most probable that the form concept applies to an intermediate area of undeliberated mental processes. It would therefore be particularly fruitful for genetic psychology.' An expansion of this viewpoint would interest the psychoanalyst.

Little attention has been devoted by psychoanalysis to the field of perception and conversely, gestalt psychological interest in the unconscious mental life, in drives and emotions, has been sparse, so that points of contact between the two are extremely limited. Thus the chapter on medical psychology is primarily of interest to the neurologist, and the chapters on child and social psychology are not dynamically oriented. The discussion on instinct, which stresses the inflexibility of instinctive behavior, appears to neglect the many contributions demonstrating the effects of experience on instinct.

The book can be recommended for those who are interested in obtaining a clear and critical presentation of gestalt psychology.