The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-04-20

which probes into your mind, dis
covers the early forgotten influence
and the unrealixed deprivations
which are injuring your nerves. i'm
pairing your happiness and perhaps
making you i'll, and which enables
YOU to overcome those handicaps
BY understanding them-such Is
the new science Of psychoanalysls
at its best.
Naturally, it is calculated to make
q deep impression upon the imag-
nations OF men, and to awaken a
new hope in the hearts OF many
who realize that their minds and
nerves are somehow badly adjusted
to life, that they suffer from Ills
which medicines cannot cure. AS
a result, psychoanalysis is rapidly
becoming the most popular tf all
sciences. Not many years ago 1t
was an obscure new development IN
psychology, frowned upon by SCI
entists of the orthodox school,
stoutly defended by q few progress
sive men in Europe and America.
Today popular magazines and sun
day newspapers publish articles
about it, a whole library OF books
designed to explain it to the lay
man has been written, and it Is a
new unmedical branch of the L-,dl-
cal profession, with practitioners in
every large city and attached to
hospitals for nervous and mental
diseases. An English novelist, j.
d. Beresford, recently published q
novel based upon psychoanalysls,
and an American writer. Floyd Dell
has Just published one the material
for which he is said to have gotten
by having his own mind analysed
by a psychoanalyst. 1t has fur
nished the basis for a new method
in writing biographies.
As a result of all this, nearly ev-
eryone has heard of psychoanalysis.
Nearly .veryone who reads at all
| has heard something about it, has
some idea of what it is. And in 80
cases out of 100 the idea is highly
erroneous.
Therein lies great danger, all the
true friends of the science are
agreed. Its popularity consists
chiefly n a widespread misunder-
standing Of psychoanalysis, and
this misunderstanding can do much
harm. In the first place, it is al
ready bringing into being a class OF
charlatans who pose as psychoan-
alysts, though having no thorough
knowledge of the subject.
Some Persons Alarmed.
In the second place. many per-
sons of the sensitive sort, inclined
to be neurotic, have been consider
ably upset by their readings Of
psychoanalysis. They have discoV-
cred in themselves neurotic symp'
toms which were either in reality
very slight or else had no exist
ence except in their own magma
tions. 1t may be that in some
cases the symptoms were produced
suggestively by the reading Of
books or articles on the subject
Undoubtedly some persons have n
this way been caused great worry
through groundless fear that they
we're threatened with insanity OF
inclined to various forms of alb.
normality.
In addition to these dangers tt
the individual from charlatans ant
from the influence Of his own imag
nation of a smattering Of infor
nation, there is the danger-in fac
the probability-that there will b.
a reaction against the science as
result of the spread Of erroneou!
ideas about it.
| For these reasons, many stu
dents of psychoanalysis are advis
ing that the layman proceed eau
tiously in his study Of the new sci
ence. They by no means wish hin
to be discouraged if he feels in
clined to make a study of it. Blu
they ask him not to form idea
about it or about himself, merel.
on the strength of what he has beel
told or of a very little reading. LIE
him read, they suggest, one Of tn
better popular expositions Of tn
subject. and then. if be is still in
terested, let him proceed to stud.
of some of the more importan
works which he will find mentione,
in the handbook. II he does this
he will speedily be convinced o
two things: First. that psychoan
lysis is an extremely complicate,
subject, of which only a traine,
mind can gain a real understand
ing by long study; and second. tina
even the practitioners of the scienc
l