Personality Maladjustments and Mental Hygiene
- Author:
Wallace Wallin, Ph.D.
McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited. 18/-.
Because it would be easy to do this book less than justice it is a difficult one to appraise. It; is described as ” A Text-book for Psychologists, Educators, Councillors, and Mental Hygiene Workers,” but such claims are, in this case, unjustifiable. Of a text-book the student has a right to expect some manual upon which he may rely for a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the subject which he wishes to study, or an arranged and authoritative enquirewithin to which he may refer as need arises. Dr Wallin’s book does not satisfy these requirements. For one thing, it does not deal with the subject of mental hygiene systematically; for another, if one wished to refer to some particular aspect of the subject, as for example child guidance work, legal procedure in relation to psychiatry, or existing provisions for dealing with cases of psychosis, it would be difficult to know where to look. The defect derives mainly from faults in selection and presentation of material.
What the book does comprise is a series of explanatory and descriptive comments relating to various aspects of mental hygiene, psychiatry, psychopathoiogy, psychotherapy, and miscellaneous kindred matters. In so far as it is the product of an individual outlook, and to some extent also of personal experience, it is valuable. In this sense it is a remarkable book; remarkable not only for the matter it contains, and the manner in which this is treated, but also for what it tells us of Dr Wallin himself and his approach to the subject of mental hygiene and the associated aspects of psychology. The disadvantage of this method is that instead of being dealt with from one angle consistently, the author’s different points of view are apt to influence the presentation so that Dr Wallin is speaking to us now as educationist, now as propagandist, here as preacher, there as journalist, too often subjective, too rarely objective. There is no doubt that he has had to deal effectively with the problem of numbers, a question with which, together with the associated difficulty of time absorption, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and social worker are seriously concerned. His experience has made for breadth of outlook, perhaps at the expense of depth of penetration, but he shows himself to have a shrewd working knowledge of mental mechanisms.
In many sections of his book the author has devoted considerable attention to the matter oi treatment. Methods of treatment and their rationale are described in detail, even those of analysis, though in accounts of the latter the point of treatment being itself a living-through; a part of experience, and a process of mental growth within, and on the part of, the personality itself, is not well brought out. It is disconcerting, in view of Dr Wailin’s wide knowledge of psychological methods, to find him advocating and exemplifying the more positive, exhortative, and affirmationist types of treatment, most valuable though they are in certain indications, at the expense of the more fundamental and thorough-going approaches?the symptomatic in preference to the radical. 1? this connection the slogan, the cliche and the platitude are of all too common occurrence. Some confusion exists, too, as to terminology’ the manner of presentation sometimes lapsing into a mixed jargon of psychological terms on the one hand, and of popular catch-words and ill-defined phrases on the other. This method Is apt to give the impression that the subject Is being ” written up ” rather than simply written upon. The caption type of summary which heads the case-histories are examples of this:?
” REGRESSIVE, INFANTILE TRAITS AND FAILURE TO GROW UP. POSSIBLY DUE TO EARLY SPOIL’ ING AND DESIRE FOR INFANTILE COMFORT; 1?? INDOLENT TO OVERCOME REGRESSIVE TRAllSJ RESORT TO RATIONALISATION AND PROCRASTlN’ ATION; DIFFICULTY IN GETTING STARTED ANP IN OUTGROWING CARELESS, SELF-SATISFlEP’ TOMBOY TYPE OF LIFE/ VALUE OF THIS SELF’ ANALYSIS TO RESPONDENT.” ” EARLY REALISATION THAT THE SCHOLAR lS HELD IN CONTEMPT AND THE LOUT LIONISE^’ AND AN ATTEMPT TO COMPENSATE BY BEING Tl# WORST KID IN SCHOOL, WHICH PROVED UNSUCCESSFUL BECAUSE OF THE UNNATURALNESS OF THE ROLE ASSUMED.”
Generalisations, assumptions, and affirmation are common in these pages, and the long string5 of substantives, of which that beginning at the foot of page 41 is a good example, and whic11 are apt to recur, make irksome reading. 0ne could have wished, too, for a greater meastf^ of that humour which comes from sensibility 0 insight and a nice discrimination.
In his preface, the author refers to the amount ?f repetition in the book, and what he says will Perhaps not be gainsaid; unfortunately, it has been a contributory factor in making the book to? long. Valuable space has also been sacrificed numerous profuse case-histories which, enough interesting to read in small quantities, lose much of their value here owing to lack of classification and order.
Despite all these criticisms it must be freely granted that it is an entertaining book. It contains much solid material in the form of facts and figures, and this is set forth in a readable and in even an amusing, if humourless, banner. Subjects such as psychopathology and Psychiatry are described and explained in the Rarest and simplest way; the very dogmatism statement is at times helpful and makes for Cogency.
Nevertheless, the book does not fulfil the Promise of its preface. It tries to be many things ends in being … nothing very definite. j1 he exasperating impression with which one is ?ft is that much of the best of Dr Wallin’s ^nowledge and experience has been obscured Jroni the reader by factors largely avoidable, ^his is particularly unfortunate in view of the act that this type of book is apt to have a y?gue among the less discriminating and be reely quoted as an authority; while the more iscerning will be unable to escape the feeling ^at a would-be scientific psychology is here e}rig exploited to no very good purpose. , There is included an excellent and compressive list of books which would be of great assistance to any student of mental hygiene. The Appendix: Suggestions for Overcoming fage Fright. is an ill-chosen addition to what ^ould have been an important and authoritative Work.
Barton Hall.
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