Psychological Man. Robert Boyers (Ed.). New York:  Harper & Row, Publishers, Harper Colophon Books, 1975.  231 pp.

In the consulting room clinicians, whose aims are immediately practical, learn of the ways in which a unique ensemble of traits supports or frustrates a particular person's intentions to live well or rightly in various situations. The aims of the social psychologist are more speculative. He or she attempts to relate classes of personal traits to the types of situations in which they occur, revealing the kinds of men and women to be found in particular times and places. Among the other topics that may concern the social psychologist are the common historical origins of typical or ideal types of people, the social or communitarian functions that such types perform or fail to perform, and the implications of the presence of such types for the good of some community, society, polity, or civilization. The twelve essays and conversations that comprise the text of Psychological Man reflect the aims of social psychologists and the concerns of those who would know more of the interlocking histories of conscience, character, and the cure of souls.

The books begins with two texts reprinted from volumes by Philip Rieff. Rieff believes, among other things, that in America and elsewhere he has witnessed the emergence of a new standard for assessing the right development of human personalities. The dispositions of some individuals are no longer evaluated according to the tenets of faith, the demands and constraints of cult or church, or even a common system of moral interdicts. The character of an individual no longer points beyond itself, finding merit in some good other than the refinement of personality per se. In the modern era the terms that specify the goodness or rightness of personality are internal to the study of personality itself. The attainment of “self-realization” or “psychic tranquility” by whatever means (but especially via therapies and the arts) has become an end in itself and is replacing other images of the right ordering of human potentialities. Therapeutic (o