Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/92

 84 BOOK REVIEWS

Mind and its Disorders. By W. H. B. Stoddart, M.D., F.R.C.P. (H. K. Lewis & Co., London, 4th Edition 1921. Pp. 592. Price 22s. 6d.) This is perhaps the most widely read British text book of psychiatry at tiie present day and is so well known that it is not necessary to give a general account of it. Its outstanding value is its comprehensiveness, pathological anatomy and chemical tests being dealt with as adequately as the clinical and psychological aspects of the subject. The book is excellently illustrated.

To us it is of especial interest to watch the gradual evolution of the various editions of the book in an increasingly marked psycho- analytical direction. Dr. Stoddart is a tliorough-going analyst both in theory and practice and has incorporated into the book a special chapter on psycho-analysis as well as numerous other references. It is true that the fact of this incorporation being subsequent to the original plan and structure of the book produces a distinctly uneven appearance, for the attempt to harmonise the newer with the older psychology here cannot- be called altogedier successful. If Dr. Stoddart will not shrink Irom the task, there is no doubt he could produce a much more valuable text book by scrapping the original plan and entirely re-writing the book. The result would be very instructive, for the reader would then traverse the whole subject with a more unitary point of view than is now possible for him.

The chapter on psycho-analysis itself is fairly adequate except that the subject of resistance is very insufficiently dealt with and tlie importance of it for both theory and practice not dwelt upon. We consider Dr. Stoddart is unduly pessismistic in the impression he gives of the outlook for treatment of homosexuality (p. 191), perversion (p. 194) and paranoia (p. 315). To allot two thirds of the space to consideration of the Weir Mitchell therapy in the treatment of hysteria strikes one as very disproportionate. There is needed a section on hypochondria, for the nearest approach to the subject comes under the heading of melancholic hypochondria (p. 313). We doubt whether Dr. Stoddart has thoroughly thought through his views on the psychology of neurasthenia, ior the older and newer conception of the condition are here confounded. His argument that as the disorder is traceable to repressed auto-erotism, and that as the latter originates in an infantile fixation the condition must accordingly be classed as psycho-neurosis, is vitiated by the fallacy that the conditions which he has in mind as thus arising are really cases of hysteria. If would be wiser to confine the term neurasthenia to those cases of manifest, not repressed, auto-erotism where there is no psychical genesis. ^ J-

Ik.