How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.

li/f ENTAL hygiene is the science of the hour. In its twenty-five years of existence this infant among the sciences has already contributed a distinctive flavour to the twentieth century. The vast literature of dynamic psychiatry has touched such diverse phases of human conduct, and illumined so many hitherto mysterious corners of the human soul, that no truly civilized adult dare remain ignorant of its basic principles any longer. The twentieth century, indeed, is characterized by its tendency to seek for meanings, not in the superficialities of overt behaviour, but in the unconscious depths of human motivation. Never before have men known so much about the human spirit, and never before have they been more eager to discover the quintessential of the human personality. The science and art of psychiatry are established to-day as valid disciplines of human thought, but the literature of psychiatry is shrouded in the mysteries of abstruse technical terms. The most worth-while contributions to the understanding of human conduct have been written by psychiatrists for psychiatrists, and in terms generally unintelligible to untrained lay readers. The best psychiatric literature, moreover, is not only complex in its terminology, but is so inaccessible that it is practically unavailable to any but the most specialized students. On the other hand a veritable Niagara of pseudo- psychological literature has been poured upon the lay reader. We are living in an age of self-appointed psycho¬ logical messiahs. Champions of pseudo-scientific panaceas can be found on every street corner. Otherwise decent and self-respecting people go about “ analysing ” the “ complexes ” of their dinner partners as if the practice of psychoanalysis were a new parlour game. Scientific terms which appeared only in the most technical journals ten years ago have invaded the popular press and misused psychological jargon peppers the text of nearly every new