Principles of Psychotherapy. by Pierre Janet; H. M. Guthrie; E. R. GuthrieReview by: T. D. EliotSocial Forces, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Dec., 1925), pp. 440-442Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3004612 .

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440 SOCIAL FORCES

deserves the attention of all engaged in school work on grounds of its penetrating analysis of the methods of curriculum- construction, which represents undoubt- edly the most important phase of educa- tional reconstruction today.

AGNES ROGERS.

PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY. By Dr. Pierre Janet; translated by H. M. and E. R. Guthrie. New York: The Macmillan Company, I9z24. Viii + 3Z2. Pp- $3.00.

Far be it from the reviewer to venture to criticize the substance of a work by Janet. The present book is a translated condensation of the author's Les medica- tions psychologiques, parts of which were included in lectures at Boston in I904.

There is a clarifying summary of the history of psychotherapies and pseudo- therapies, with well-balanced appraisal of their vogue, their collapse and the valid elements in each, a penetrating but less clear statement of his own synthesis of these valid elements, in the form of certain psychic laws or principles; these are fol- lowed by their possible applications in the more systematic diagnosis and selec- tion of cases for treatment.

Janet claims (p. 6) that man first sought help from gods, later from mysterious and capricious natural forces. Both these stages have survived as interpretations of valid experiences. The problem is, not the reality of cures, but in what this reality consists.

Of Mrs. Eddy "the best one can say in her behalf is that as a delirious hysteric she had in a high degree the power of transforming her own desires into sincere belief." "It is first and always a concern for the treatment of the sick that directs all the thoughts of its author."

Of hypnotism he says: "It is a definite treatment with a restricted field of appli- cation . ... of which the results are

established.'" "The decline of hypno- tism . . . . is the result of accidental causes, of the feeling of regret and decep- tion following unguarded enthusiasm.'" "The hypnotic state does not add any new power superior to the normal activ- ity of men." "Suggestion . . . . will not give them back a will that is lacking." "It would be very wrong to conclude

. . .. that. . . . in certain sub- jects, criminal and dangerous acts could not be brought about by the mechanism of suggestion."

Of Freud he claims precedence: "He granted the truth of the facts and pub- lished some new observations of the same kind. In these publications he changed first of all the terms that I was using . .... he transformed a clinical ob- servation and a therapeutic treatment with a definite and limited field of use into an enormous system of medical philosophy" "generalizing them beyond all reason." "What one should avoid is the subconscious that one never sees and that one is limited to constructing accord- ing to fancy" (p. 273). "Psychoanalysis . . . . is a critminal investigation that must find a guilty party" (p. 2'74). "It is when one finds no explanation in the actual life of the patient that it is justi- fiable to seek into his past life."

"Psychoanalysis is to-day the last in- carnation of those practices at once magical and psychological that char- acterized magnetism. It maintains the same characteristics, the use of imagina- tion and the lack of criticism, the vaulting ambition, the contagious fascination, the struggle against orthodox science. It is probable that it will also meet with un- deserved appreciation and decline; but, like magnetism and hypnotism, it will have played a great role and will have given a useful impulse to the study of psychology" (p. 46).

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LIBRARY AND WORK SHOP 441

Bleuler is named (p. 45) only among Freud's pupils, and Jung is hardly noticed.

Janet describes (pp. I36, I89, I94) what sound like chain reflexes, engrams, fixa- tion and repression without utilizing those expressions. He refers to patients who suffer from feelings of incompleteness and to the gastro-intestinal theory of neuroses, without referring to the authors of The Neurotic Constitution and The Nervous Stomach. Nor does he mention the work of Kempf and other noteworthy American psycho-pathologists. Coue is ignored, but so is Alexander. MacDougal's restriction of energy-charges to the in- stincts is rejected (p. I37). On page 2.30

he refers curiously to a "vital instinct" which turns out, on the next page to be "vital functioning:" virtually metabo- lism.

Like Kempf, and others of the American school, Janet recognizes the essential unity of "mind" and "body," as well as possible dissociation (along other lines of cleavage) of parts of this organic unity. "Psychotherapy is an application of psychological science to the treatment of diseases." The current decline in its popularity will give way, with the growth of psychology, to its more discriminating study and practice.

The three leading types of psycho- therapy are those based upon hypnotism, upon the economy of forces, and upon stimulation. The principle put forth most prominently is, of course, that of economy of psychic energy, with its corrollaries in the treatment of exhaustion by mobiliza- tion of forces, by tapping of hidden re- sources, by channelizing and conserving, organizing and stimulating energies. The organism's behavior is discussed repeatedly under the budget metaphor, offering an interesting parallel to the conceptions of surplus and deficit in respect to standards of living, as worked out by the social economists.

Janet breaks down the factitious dis- tinction between organic and functional diseases, except that certain physical con- ditions can be remedied through func- tional treatment, i.e., through stimula- tion of changes in behavior, i.e., psycho- therapy (p. 256).

The importance of social factors in mental disease is repeatedly recognized or implied. The role of situation is stressed (pp. ioi, 120, I6o/3, 284). The divided self (pp. II8, I27/8, I33/5, I58); the mirrored self (p. 12o); the person's con- ception of his role (p. 238); the impor- tance of simplifying life for the socially inadequate (pp. i88, 28i); social insti- tutionalization of character trends, whether considered beneficial or mobid (pp. I99, 2o4/5, 281), effects of isolation (pp. z8I/3, I79 if); complexes due to family interaction (pp. `83/4); social institutions, custom, etc., as labor-savers, economizers of psychic force for the weak (pp. )o8/9); the r6le of suggestion (pp. 1z 8/30); social conflict in relation to exhaustion and refreshment (pp. I93/7,

II5/9); the reconditioning of responses through social stimulation (pp. i95,

2II/3); the releasing effects of social shock (pp. 2i8/9); assimulation or accom- modation as socio-psychic processes (pp. 242/3); the r6le of personal domination (p. 50o and elsewhere); neuroses as adap- tive, experiments in social behavior which have become socially unadapted, unadap- tive, unsuccessful (pp. 124/5); the effects of modern competition in over-stimula- tion and exhaustion (pp. z7I/2, 275): -these are among the social-psycho- logical points discussed or implied in the text.

Janet claims that tendencies of the sort often called primitive instincts have a "strong charge" or endowment of force. "The rational and moral tendencies, on the contrary, have unfortunately received a very small endowment." One wonders

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442. SOCIAL FORCES

if it might not be preferable to ascribe the apparent weakness or instability of the social "coenotropes" or pseudo- instincts to their complex, balanced, in- hibited structure. Occasional fortunate persons are found organized with such internal harmony and so fully endowed, that their rational and moral "drive" is very powerful.

For the classifying sociologist, as for the classifiers in psychiatry, Janet has this old but well-phrased warning (p. 255 if): "There is never anything absolute in a classification: diseases like living beings form a continuous series in which we establish divisions according to our needs."

T. D. ELIOT.

Northwestern University.

THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT. By Thomas Jackson Woofter, Jr., Ph.D. New York: Ginn and Company, i925. 2.5I PP. $1.40.

Although Mr. Woofter does not write as the official spokesman of the white leaders in the movement for inter-racial co6peration in the South, the appearance of this book is significant as it will indicate the position of these men and women who have never formulated a creed. The book is the result of much research and the facts are stated generally with the cool- ness of scientific investigation. It is strikingly free from the usual hysteria that characterizes southern writers on the race problem. The author discusses the problem with frankness and gives few evidences of the resistances that one finds in the recent scrap-book by Weatherford.

The author states in his preface that the purpose of the book is "primarily an effort to give authentic facts concerning the different phases of Negro life in the United States." In this the book suc- ceeds very well. In the first chapter the author gives a concise statement of the

results of the latest anthropological and psychological research as to racial dif- ferences. However, he still believes in the mythical Anglo-Saxon who is supremely fair and supremely just. Doubtless, the book may serve as a means of acquainting certain sections of the white population of the South with many facts about the Negro.

Mr. Woofter holds the opinion that the two races may live side by side without physical amalgamation. He offers in support of this opinion the case of the Jews and Gypsies. But the author's evidence supports the opposite opinion, for the Jews have conformed to the physi- cal type among whom they have lived, while the Gypsies who are voluntary social outcasts are not a part of any com- munity.

There is in the book too much of an attempt at rationalization of the southern position. The author seems to make the Negro problem center about the fact of the lower cultural level of the Negro. We are told that the Negro is inefficient economically and a menace to democratic political institutions because of his ig- norance. Those acquainted with the southern situation know that lazy and shiftless Negroes are never driven out of the South; while thousands of economic- ally efficient Negroes have been driven out because of their efficiency. This was the cause of the Arkansas riots. Throughout the book, we find reference to the Negro's finding a niche in American civilization. Beneath this we see the ever present atti- tude of assigning a place to the Negro, instead of leaving his social function to be determined as other citizens. Al- though he follows the custom of thinking that Booker Washington has furnished a basis for inter-racial cooperation, the Negro educated at Tuskegee often finds himself just as much out of place in the

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