In this scientifically conceived, artistically delivered, book, Dr. Menninger launches a timely attack upon the entrenchments of medical, psychological, and lay traditions. He starts out by explaining his theoretical conclusion, that the multitude of unreasonable ways by which man produces mental and physical suffering for himself are the ultimate effects of a fundamental need of the human being to produce his own death. During the lifetime of a human being, such an “instinct” is temporarily deflected from its ultimate goal, death, through external aggressions, both useful and harmful; and it is attenuated and partially fulfilled by diseases