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Inasmuch as in this work the only reference to psychoanalysis we note is in a single statement (p. 149) that the author finds his view regarding objects of belief “has close resemblance to Freud's notion of withdrawal of libido from objects and ideas, and investment of objects and ideas with libido,” and further since he includes some discussion of delusion formation taken over from two of his previous studies on the manic-depressive and schizophrenic psychoses, we feel inclined to make some mention of this otherwise purely sectarian psychological work.
We utilize this word sectarian because of a footnote allusion of the author regarding Lewin's ‘psychological sect.’ On this frame of reference Lundholm's book belongs to the McDougall psychological sect.
Thus it may be seen that it has little interest or, shall we say, value, for one of the Freudian sect, to keep in the metaphor. In fact for one of the latter it might appear that the author comes perilously near to the one whose cry was, “cure my unbelief,” for in one way or another and by slight transformation of phrases, he would go a bit beyond the ‘wish’ psychology of his master into a more dynamic setting. Thus his Ego-object relation is not much different from the object relation of Freud, and throughout one could substitute “libido” for “energy,” save,—and this is probably the essential lack of the book,—for the unwritten expression of the sex phobia.
The work is interesting, pleasantly written and is worth having on one's shelf, if only for its excellent collection of quotations of great writers on ‘belief’ situations. The accent on the ‘wish’ factor in these quotations (chapter VII) is noteworthy.
In these columns we have had occasion to speak disparagingly of the author's works on the manic-depressive and schizophrenic psychoses. We find here no reason to change our opinion. Furthermore, the chapters here on delusion formation in these two psychoses is far from satisfactory to the psychoanalytically oriented ps