Storm and Stress

Abstract

OF recent years, emotion as the driving and guiding principle, which shapes our lives and determines our behaviour, has occupied the attention of psychologists to a greater and greater extent. More particularly have they attempted to study from a scientific aspect that period of difficulty through which every boy and girl must pass as the simpler adjustments of the home give place to the wider emotional relationships of society. To the individual adolescent the period is still as stormy as it was to Goethe, and the adult is only groping his way to an understanding which will enable him to help. The question of what emotion is remains unsettled, and while all authorities regard the affective reactions of pleasure and pain as important constituents, they are by no means unanimous as to their exact relation to appetite, instinct, and emotion.

(1) Pleasure and Pain: a Theory of the Energic Foundation of Feeling.

By Paul Bousfield. Pp. x + 114. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York: E. P. Button and Co., 1926.) 4s. 6d. net.

(2) The Adolescent Girl: a Book for Parents and Teachers.

By Dr. Winifred Richmond. Pp. xv + 212. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1925.) 5s. net.

(3) The Gang Age: a Study of the Preadolescent Boy and his Recreational Needs.

By Dr. Paul Hanly Furfey. Pp. xiv + 189. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1926.) 8s. 6d. net.