[Review of the book Psychopathology

Abstract

Reviews the book, Psychopathology by Edward J. Kempf (1920). "It is comparatively simple and very easy to be an extremist in anything, but it requires eternal care, sound common sense, and no little patience and endurance to maintain a progressively refining, healthfully constructive attitude toward the fundamental needs and pleasures of human nature." When the above statement appears as early as the third page of this recent contribution to psychopathological literature, the reader is inclined to assume a rather comfortable postural tonus and approach the volume with the expectation that perhaps at last has been found the long anticipated volume which is to safely point a course between the extremes of too rigid conservatism and too liberal psychoanalytic deductions. Surely a writer who voices the need of "eternal care" and "sound common sense" will not fail to heed his own warning. For the reader expecting a conservative interpretation of human adjustment, there is increasing disappointment. He will find here outlined, no medium course, but still another extreme contribution to psychopathological literature, which he must appraise and, after selection and rejection, weave into his own hypotheses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)