You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The proponents of psychoanalysis have always believed that one of the most practical utilizations of the knowledge gained by this method of the study of the mind would be in its application to the problems of education. This book is written by a teacher and is an effort to apply the principles of psychoanalysis to the various problems of education and also to assist in the better understanding and relating of the teacher and pupil. It is a worthy effort in this direction and is written in a simple and lucid style, which can be understood by the lay reader and by the teacher. The material on the whole is excellent. The reviewer thinks that it is rather unfortunate to refer to certain ideas a hereditary because it does not seem to him that that can adequately express the real facts, except the idea of heredity is explained to include so much that it becomes meaningless. If the germ is supposed to contain the potentialities of everything that subsequently develops in the life of the individual, such a description of ideas as hereditary would be warranted, but such a concept only interferes with a true understanding of the real origin and meaning of ideas as organs of the mind. In the same way the thesis of the author, that the conscious can in any way affect the unconscious, might be questioned. If the unconscious is, as the reviewer believes, our historical past, it cannot be changed by the present. The tendencies in that past can only be redirected and reassimilated to the present in the new directions. Speaking also of emotions as being always projected to some outward source, seems also to be inaccurate. The anxiety of certain neurotics is frequently expressed by them as not being projected outward, being a feeling for which they have no explanation,