You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Simple descriptive studies in the field of psychiatry are extremely rare. The author of this volume is to be congratulated in his production of a little book which describes adequately various important psychiatric phenomena and limits theoretical discussion to a minimum. There is no doubt but that “Obsessions still remain a tantalizing enigma both in theory and in practice and it so happens that those who feel most secure on their theoretical grounds are most likely to be disappointed in practice.”
The author begins with discussions of the problems of the method and very rapidly focuses upon disgust as a central theme of obsessions. He stresses the importance of disgust, indicating that “there is practically no moment in our life into which disgust or delight do not enter.” He feels that “disgust, far from being an unconditional physiological response, is a psychological reaction acquired under the influence of certain social conventions. This approach would seem most reasonable as a result of the omniform and varying disgusts present in each culture which differ from individual to individual and culture to culture.
His discussion on “Decay” is equally interesting and this chapter is leavened with quotations from literature and poetry which makes an interesting subject even more readable. The author next takes up the symptomatology of obsessions stressing the action and perfectionism, the orderliness, the isolation, the ritual, the power of the word, the fixed behavior and the avaraice of obsessiveness. Each symptom group is clearly depicted and the whole presents a composite picture familiar to clinicians and of great value to students. One of the most important parts of the book is the chapter dealing with clinical varieties which take up the problem of obsessive psychoses and obsessive neuroses. Psychiatrists for many years have written in the difficulty of taxonomy resulting from the fact that obsessive problems must be classed as neuroses while the patient is ob