[Review of An Introduction to Abnormal Psychology; Foundations of Abnormal Psychology; The Mental Defective

Abstract

Reviews four books: An Introduction to Abnormal Psychology by V. E. Fisher (1929), Foundations of Abnormal Psychology by Fred A. Moss and Thelma Hunt (1932), The Mental Defective, A Problem in Social Inefficiency by Richard J. A. Berry and R. G. Gordon (1932), and Secret Ways of the Mind. A Survey of the Psychological Principles of Freud, Adler, and Jung by W. M. Kranefeldt and translated with a preface by Ralph M. Eaton (1932). Of these four books Fisher's Introduction is probably the most important as a treatment of abnormal psychology. He recognizes the effects of organic pathology on behavior but considers that "mental abnormalities can be most adequately understood and dealt with when viewed as disorders of the personality." The book appears to be extremely useful for text-book use. The Foundations of Moss and Hunt which also purports to treat of abnormal psychology is so extremely colored by the thesis that "the mind is merely the result and accompaniment of the functioning of the body as a whole, and its integrity depends upon the integrity of the bodily structures on which it is based" that one questions if it can properly be called a psychology at all. A psychologist could hardly use this book as a text, although it would make a good supplement to Fisher's Introduction which omits any account of disorders due to organic influences. "Mental deficiency is a partial or complete premature arrest of brain growth and development, especially of the minute cells of the brain, which occurs either before birth or at some time between birth and the age of puberty." Thus Berry and Gordon in the Mental Defective account for all mental deficiency--idiots, imbeciles, and morons, as well as moral imbeciles! They deny that feeblemindedness is primarily a school problem and therefore its determination cannot be made by school authorities. For the specialist in feeblemindedness it is, of course, too elementary; the intelligent layman, if he cares to investigate, will find that it gives a distorted and incomplete picture of the whole problem. The fourth of these books is a critical and well written summary of the psychoanalytic schools of Freud, Adler and Jung. The author evidently prefers Jung's theoretical position. It would serve admirably with Moss and Hunt's book as supplementary reading for a class in abnormal psychology using Fisher as a text. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)