A correspondent has asked us to try to state where
in our opinion lie the differences between the theories of the Nancy School and those of the practitioners of psycho-analysis. Very roughly we would suggest that the differences are two—psycho- analysis includes an entire theory of the human mind in health as well as in disease. The Nancy School is entirely clinical, prac- tical and curative. Their treatment is chiefly suitable for those who are suffering from the after-effects—the scars as it were left by mental distress. The patient who usually con- sults the psycho-analyst would find himself, necessarily, from the nature of his trouble, unable to carry out M. Coue's simple, self-healing treatment. On the contrary, those who are suffering from genuine physical maladies, or who had suffered from mental troubles which had left more or less physical sequelae, would probably find M. Coue's methods more efficacious than those of psycho-analysis because so much more direct, straightforward and simple. To ask which is the bettor, the treatment of the Nancy School or that of psycho-analysis, would be analogous to asking which was the bettor drug, aspirin or opium ? Tho answer is another question, " As a remedy for what malady ? "
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