tiresome way around before we come to our goal, the study of the
psychotherapeutic agencies. And yet it is the only possible way to
overcome the superficiality with which the discussion is too often
carried on; we must understand exactly how the psychological analysis
and explanation of the scientist differ from the popular point of view.
After studying in this spirit the foundation of psychotherapy, we shall
carefully examine the practical work, its methods and its results, its
possibilities and its limitations. We shall inquire finally into the
place which it has to take, looking back upon its history, criticising
the present status and outlining the development which has to set in for
the future, if a haphazard zigzag movement is not to destroy this great
agency for human welfare by transforming it into a source of
superstition and bodily danger.

PART I

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

II

THE AIM OF PSYCHOLOGY

The only safe basis of psychotherapy is a thorough psychological
knowledge of the human personality. Yet such a claim has no value until
it is entirely clear what is meant by psychological knowledge. We can
know man in many ways. Not every study of man's inner life is psychology
and the careless mixing of different ways of dealing with man's inner
life is largely responsible for the vagueness which characterizes the
popular literature of psychotherapy. It is not enough to say that a
statement is true or not true. It may be true under one aspect and
entirely meaningless under another. For instance, a minister's
discussion of man's energies may be full of deep truth and may be
inspiring; and yet it may not contain the slightest contribution to a
really psychological knowledge of those energies, and would mislead
entirely the physician were he to base his treatment of human energies
on such a religious interpretation.

Can we not look from different standpoints even on any part of the
outer world? I see before me the ocean with its excited waves splashing
against the rocks and shore, I see the boats tossed on the stormy sea
and I am fascinated by the new and ever new impulses of the tumultuous
waves. The whole appears to me like one gigantic energy, like one great
emotional expression, and I feel deeply how I understand this beautiful
scenery in appreciating its unity and its meaning. Yet would I ever
think that it is the only way to understand this turmoil of the waters
before