Review of So you're going to a psychiatrist

Abstract

Reviews the book, So you're going to a psychiatrist by Elizabeth I. Adamson (1936). The reviewer states that the purpose of this contribution to popularized science as summed up by the author, Dr. Elizabeth Adamson, is as follows: "This book attempts the answer to a question I have often been asked, and have never been able to meet to my own satisfaction. . . . What books can we read, I was frequently asked, that will present, in simple language, an accurate account of modern psychiatric thought. . . I have tried, in non-technical language, to give what is now known, within the scope of psychiatry, about the reasons for success and failure in human adjustment." According to the reviewer, the reader is initiated into psychiatric realms by means of such captivating chapter headings as, "From Intuition to Intelligence," "Politics of the Mind," "Running from Ghosts," "The Baby's Five-Year Program," "Design for Immaturity," and so on. The author conceives of psychiatry as "concerned with what doctors call personality deviations, whether mild or severe." According to the reviewer, the reader gains the impression from the reading of this book that psychiatry is not a recent development, highly speculative, but rather a closed chapter of explanations, fully matured, not having required the binding ties of experimental methods, nor requiring them in the future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)