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If this book can be looked upon as a satire of a day in an analyst's office, its message is cynical and distressing. Vulgar mockery pervades the contribution from the stagy, pompous introduction to its closing line. The literary style is in keeping with the contents. All the characters important to the central theme or otherwise are in for a drubbing. Most striking is the author's scathing attack on Dr. Rodan, therapist, scientist,
and teacher. He is depicted as a smug, pretentious poseur, full of phony humility. Even his varied assortment of patients do not fail to penetrate his mask, despite his befogging tactics. The office and the waiting room satisfy the theatre goer's conception of the analytic atmosphere, even to the secretary's occasional intrusions with her understanding glances and quiet smiles.
Then there is the analyst's lunch hour. Here we catch the mind healer in a profound, yet fragmentary, reverie, musing about world affairs, wondering whether he should relinquish his practice and turn his gifts to cosmic use: to analyze mankind. One gets a short glimpse of Dr. Rodan's friends and colleagues. He refers to a significant therapeutic triumph which he had reported before a meeting of a psychoanalytic society. Coldness and hostility are the rewards for his efforts. There is also a passing reference to an allegedly signal experience of his as a young interne. The vignette hints at the almost insuperable obstacles to which the eager, energetic, young psychiatrist is exposed. On one occasion his future career is almost jeopardized by his daring to question his chief's diagnosis of a particular case. Fate, however, stepped in and spared him for his patients and pupils, to whom he has dedicated this book.