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An interesting little book that discusses the history and development of psychology on the way to dynamic concepts by an author who is eminently competent to speak.
The chapter on abnormal behavior is, like all chapters on this subject by psychologists, disappointing. The writer realizes the importance and desirability of the psychologists and the practical psychiatrists getting together, but the prospect seems rather hopeless. The author's discussion gives the impression of all such discussions of abnormal behavior which get their facts from the printed book rather than the book of nature,—the patient.
It is interesting to note the suggestion of a social consciousness as different from the consciousnesses of the individual units that compose society and dependent upon the relations which these units bear to each other.
Particularly interesting are the comments on punishment and on imitation. With respect to the latter, the author has very little faith in imitation as a real factor of importance in learning.
The multiplication in the discussion of trends, or as the author calls them, drives, of all sorts of motives, the fear, pugnacity, economic, self-assertive, submissive motives, etc., is disappointing to the psychoanalyst and seems merely giving a name to each variety of behavior.