Review of: Practical Psychology

Reviews the book, Practical Psychology by F. K. Berrien (1952). What is practical psychology? Impractical psychology? What does practical itself mean? Dr. Berrien answers the first question by implication in what he includes in the text. Answers to the latter two questions remain unanswered. In Practical Psychology the author covers selectively what others have called applied psychology, and what, still earlier, was subsumed under the label of psychotechnology. Dr. Berrien has organized his book around five major areas or topics: problems of adjustment, industrial psychology, applications to consumers and advertising, crime, and personal problems. The first and las listed topics, however, might well have comprised a single part of the book. Certainly the two chapters covering personal problems, one on vocational guidance and the other on effective speaking and writing, would not be out of place if added to such chapters as study efficiency, mental health and guidance, and adjustments in later life-these latter being among those comprising the first part.