Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/190

186 is that advanced students, academic or medical, may be brought into direct contact with research problems in psychopathology and means thus provided for the carrying on of much additional investigation. Under the present circumstances the clinical psychologist might often occupy his time very effectively with the combination of research and the training of others in its methods and problems; while from a practical standpoint it also tends to retain him longer in the work to do so.

The optimum of teaching in medical psychology involves, therefore, a unification of instruction and research. It deals, on the one hand, with the clinically useful procedures of experiment; on the other, with the broader problems of personality and psychogenesis. Its contemporary sources are, on the one hand, the university laboratory, on the other, hospital clinic, and it is best served by the experience of both. Throughout, it has been apparent that the subject matter of psychological medicine is one of particular appeal to students specializing in mental diseases, and should for the present be elective. It would be rather unwise to now seek the required study of psychology in medical schools, as psychology is not yet in a position to make sufficiently definite contributions of general value. Only through the encouragement of research, and its direction through proper teaching, are its great and obvious deficiencies to be supplied, and the endeavor has been to indicate how psychology and medicine can best meet upon grounds of mutual helpfulness towards this end.