The objectives of this book are best set forth in the author's own words, as follows: “What I have aimed to do is to present a survey of the field of psychopathology and of the general background necessary for the study of clinical psychiatry. In other words, this book should serve as an elaboration of the author's Essentials of Psychiatry or of any of a number of other textbooks dealing with the subject of clinical psychiatry. It will not have fulfilled its true purpose, however, unless it has also imparted a better understanding of the motivations of human behavior.”