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It is with a sense of deep dissatisfaction that one reads the books on popular psychology, psychoanalysis, or psychotherapy which are so prevalent nowadays. One questions in the 6rst place their legitimate place in the treatment of nervous disorders towards which they are usually admittedly directed. Should the neurotic read them? Emphatically, no! Perhaps the general practitioner might sometimes thereby have his thoughts turned towards mental problems, to the consequent benefit of his patients, just as a picture of Earle Liederman or Lionel Strongfort in the advertising pages of a magazine might very well turn the sedentary clerk's mind toward thoughts of fresh air and get him out for a game of tennis or golf.
The logical point of attack, however, is the medical school, where more and more the mental side of medicine is being stressed. Even those graduates who have never had the benefit of any adequate training of this sort are being subjected to an atmosphere of mental medicine nowadays. That this awakening of interest in psychic problems will eventually bear visible fruit is hardly open to question. In the meantime it is reflected in many strange by-products, such as New Thought, Christian Science, spiritualism, mental telepathy, Coueism, and so on. It is a dubious tribute to Freud that his doctrines have inspired a thousand amateur psycho-therapeutists with the itch to expound them to the multitudes. So we have a host of volumes with such titles as “Easy Lessons in Psychoanalysis,” “How to Psychoanalyze Yourself,” “What is Psychoanalysis?” and so on.
And then there are those practitioners who might be called the “Personal Healers.” The history of medicine is full of them. Anciently they explained their undoubted successes by whatever necromancy was then popular. Nowadays they talk of psychology, of autosuggestion, and of psychoanalysis. But not content with talking of it, they write about it.
Dr. Jackson, it is quite evident from her book, is one of the Personal He