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This book was designed with advanced undergraduate or graduate students in mind, and some acquaintance with diagnosis and therapy is assumed. As a result of these assumptions, many diagnostic methods ordinarily highlighted are more or less left out. This has been done since it is expected that the average student will be exposed to an entire supplementary course in projective techniques, and this text is primarily for use in other courses in clinical psychology. Although the book runs some 779 pages, the author, in his preface, apologizes for the lack of clinical cases, pointing out that space considerations were important.
The clinical method in psychology is first discussed, beginning with Witmer's approach in 1896, and carrying through problems of clinical and scientific method. He believes that both methods have assets of objectivity and quantification and that the real difference lies essentially in the attitude taken toward the problem. “The attitude the psychologist takes toward the subject of his field, human beings, decides his approach. If the approach is that of understanding the individual for the sake of helping him or at least modifying his behavior, the clinical attitude and consequently the clinical method have been adopted.” The author expects some objection to this distinction, and will probably get it.
The second part of the book deals with diagnostic appraisal, and is really the bulk of the volume. Following a brief discussion of the functions of diagnosis-(1) securing all relevant information for the available sources, (2) analyzing these data, and (3) planning for the future—a notion which goes way beyond the restricted concept of merely labeling—the author moves into the problem of the psychologist and his diagnostic task. The method used at Washington University School is discussed and the interpretations of