Guiding Human Misfits
- Author:
Alexandra Adler.
Faber & Faber. 5s.
A simple, well-written and extremely well- Produced exposition of some of the basic facts ln the modern handling of the mentally unfit by the daughter of the late Professor Adler, which calls for more notice than it is usual to accord to the plethora of such short popular expositions. Miss Adler emphasizes once more her father’s ^dividual approach, and the necessity of treating each case as a complex of elements best under- stood from a study of the circumstances and history of the individual person. This in fact ls Adler’s most significant contribution to the technique of the modern child guidance clinic.
Those who were privileged to hear Professor Adler on the occasion of his last visit to London will remember that he considered that the three important issues in the life of the individual were his adjustment to society, to his work, and to the Problem of his love relationships. Miss Adler Amplifies these issues in dealing with the Problems of childhood and adolescence, and Wlth the psychology of the neurotic and the criminal.
In a book of a hundred odd pages, however, the field is too vast to justify a popular approach even by Miss Adler. There is in addition a highly misleading and fanciful chapter on dreams, which belies all Professor Adler’s insistence on the individual approach. It reads instead like the old dream books of a more credulous age, and is not really any more scientific.
The book abounds in easy generalizations which do not escape notice, though they might not be expected in a book from such a source. There must be comfort to the dictators, for instance, in the following: ” The spirit of the people who have contributed to social develop- ment will never die. But what becomes of those people who have been a hindrance ? We find no trace of them in history; they have left nothing. Only the useful accomplishments are included and those who work against progressive developments disappear.” Not thus can psychological writers contribute to the millenium. R.T.
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