Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/70

 62 BOOK REVIEWS

standards ; Dr. Kempf considers that in evolulioii fear has proved the most successful means of combating 'biological inferiority and perverse waste' (p. 700). It is evident that the theory, being elaborated essentially from the point of view of the adult male, is more difficult to apply to women, and one wonders how it could apply at all to the neuroses of children.

One sees that the theory is an ingenious one and has further the merit, fundamentally, of simplicity. It retains Freud's insistence on the importance of infantile, 'per\-erse' sexuality for the aetiology of the neuroses, but adopts Adler's views of the conscious (not unconscious) mechanism of the symptoms as a flight from this, and, like him, erects an inverted pyramid on the inadequate basis of the castration complex alone. He falls into Adler's error of overlooking the positive narci.ssistic basis imderlying the castration complex and sense of inferiority, and doubtless for the same reason, from lack of adequate training in the technique of reaching the unconscious proper; he does not, however, follow Adler in desexualising the supposedly dominating wish for virility. It is not necessary here to repeat any of the numerous criticisms of Adler's doctrine that have appeared from the side of psycho-analysis; the reader may be referred to the latest of them, by Professor Freud, in this Journal (Vol. I, pp. 393-5).

So far it has been possible, we hope, to follow Dr. Kempf's line ol thought We cannot, however, say the same for the nosological section of the book. Here it seems to us that Dr. Kempf has given his phantasy fullest rein, and the result is a most astonishing classific- ation of mental disease which is like a maze without a clue. Not only is it unlike any other scheme of classification, but, what is really incommoding, the author has made no effort to indicate its connections with known territory, so that we have to pick our way as best we can. It starts fairly simply by dividing all mental disorders into 'benign' and 'pernicious', which one would think might correspond with the usual division into neuroses and psychoses were it not that some epileptoid, dementia praecox, manic-depressive and prison cases come under the first heading, while manias, compulsions and obsessions are given under both. The main difference between the t\vo groups is that m the former the patient 'retains tiie tendency to accept the personal source of the wishes or cravings which cause the distress' (p. 195), this not being so with the latter; the former can therefore be analysed and corrected, the latter not

The benign neuroses are divided into two groups, 'suppression neuroses ' and ' repression neuroses ' respectively, the essential difference being that in only the former is the patient conscious of the nature of the cravings that have made him ill. These in no way correspond, as