Curbing the Q
Psychologic™
By Hazel Canning
DORIS MOORE was a private
secretary, young and rather
pretty. She had a good posi
tion with one of the leading
lawyers of her home town. She was
liked by her boss, for she managed his
office efficiently. She also dressed in
pretty frocks. Most of her time outside
the office she spent with other girls.
Doris Moore was wretchedly un
happy. She was troubled and puzzled
about herself. With her “girl friends,”
as she called them, she was natural.
But so soon as a young man loomed
against the horizon, Doris, blushing,
either talked too much or too little.
“Why can’t I be natural with men?”
she often asked herself, miserably.
“Why do I always scare them off? Why
am I so self-conscious?”
She got to imitating the enticing
mannerisms of her best friend, who
had many beaux. She planned, she
brooded, she manipulated and then,
one day, a new clerk came to work in
ttye law office.
By what miracle she never knew, she
watched him grow into enough interest
to ask if he might call some evening
She invited him to dinner.
But as the hour drew near, she grew
nervous. An hour before Carl Dryson
was due, she knew she could never face
the strange, frightening, fascinating
young man alone. So she flew to the
telephone and invited her old maid
aunt to come to dinner also . . .
Young Dryson arrived . . . ate . . .
departed at nine-fifteen. The evening
had been a flop for him. So he never
asked to call again. But that same eve
ning, alone in her apartment, poor
Doris Moore wept her heart out .
She was awake till the first light fil
tered through the muslin curtains. Then
she knew what she was going to do
A psychoanalyst had recently lec
tured to her girls’ club. Psychoanalysis
was getting more and more the thing.
Even great ladies had themselves
“psyched.” Well, she would, too.
She went. It was a long interview
Stretched out on a couch, she lay in the
dark, the curtains drawn, telling her
troubles. The psychoanalyst explained
that people talked better lying down in
the dark. Then finally he took over
the interview.
“Your trouble," he said, “is repres
sion. At your age you should have a
husband, children. You suffer from
denial. But before you get married
you should accumulate some ease with
men. My dear girl, sow some wild oats,
even as your normal brother. That is
the cure for you.”
BUT at this, poor Doris burst into
tears. “I can’t,” she faltered “I
scare off every man I meet.”
“I want to help you get well,” mused
the psychoanalyst. “So what do you
say to giving me some of your spare
time for the next few months?”
“Oh," again wept Doris Moore, *T
don’t know. I am afraid . . . I . .
“Surely,” he interrupted, “you realize
that your psychoanalyst knows what is
best for you?” . . .
Six months went by. It was Christ
mas Eve. A young woman registered
at a big hotel in New York. Half an
hour before the Christmas bells rang
out at midnight, she jumped out of her
window. . . . Back home, everybody
wondered why Doris Moore had killed
herself. Girls generally did desperate
things like that, they said, because of
heartache over a man. But everybody
knew Doris Moore had never had a
beau.
Everybody knew except her psycho
analyst, who never came forward to
tell how her face had changed to a face
of death, when he broke the news to
her that he was going to be married.
Nor did he tell of the advice he had
given about curing her repressions
Because of happenings similar to this,
and because of many other emotional
ills following the visits of neurotic pa
tients to unscrupulous practitioners,
distrust of mushroom psychoanalysts
has increased for the last five years.
This distrust reached its culmination
the ot-her day when Dr. Percival M.
Symonds, Professor of Education at
Teachers’ College, Columbia University,
presented a bill to the New York legis
lature for the curbing of fake psychol
ogists.
I'VR SYMONDS says: “These charla
tans are persons of mediocre ability
with little or no reputable training, who
prey upon unsuspecting persons, making
diagnoses of mental conditions on in
sufficient evidence, and offering advice
on the basis of this evidence, or no evi
dence at all. These persons give lec
tures and hold clinics and individual
consultations, as reputable psycholo
gists. Usually they do not infringe on
the laws relating to the practice of
medicine, and so cannot be prosecuted.
“But the practice of the psychologist,
nevertheless, is a matter of grave im
portance to public health. The licens
ing of psychologists is a much needed
public health measure.”
Dr. Lawson D. Lowry, of National
Mental Health, and a lecturer at the
School of Social Work, took public no
tice of this type of advice, in a lecture
to his students:
“The doctor who advises patients to
try extra-marital adventures to cure
repressions," he said, “is guilty of mal
practice. He is also piling up misery
for most patients, in the guilty feelings
which oppress a sensitive person, after
transgressing.”
“Go out and express yourself,’' the
inquiry showed, has become almost
stock advice given to careerist women
turned 30, to anybody troubled in spirit
and worried over some phase of his
love life—or lack of it. But such ad
vice is the worst possible, according to
Lawrence Gould. M A., D D., and con
sulting psychologist of New York
“We’ve got to admit that the advice
given to the young woman you men
tion,” Mr Gould said, “has been re
peated sadly often by psychological
charlatans and quacks. Such advice is
shocking bad science, as well as bad
morals.”
But the malpracticing psychologist
and psychoanalyst gives other poor ad
vice besides “go sow wild oats.” To be
sure he seems to believe all repressions
arise from one source. He does not
seem to realize that fear, feelings of
failure, inadequacy, that thwarted am
bition, the pinch of poverty, ill health
and fierce competition beget as many
repressions as that for which the pa
tient is told to “express” himself.
Professor Symonds, Mr. Gould, and
the head of a New York clinic who
could not lend her name because of
medical ethics, all agree you should
beware —
The consultant who advises you to
sow wild oats;
Who tells you to get married to cure
your emotional repressions;
Who urges you to cheer up, because
everything is rosy;
Who gives you lists to test yourself
and find your own cure;
Who turns out hypochondriacs run
ning to the doctor for life
When choosing a psychologist or a
psychoanalyst, these say. choose a man
or woman whose own problems are
solved. Choose somebody with stand
ing in the community, a reputable per
son. If in doubt, write or apply to the
society of psychologists or psychoan
alysts in your own home town