HARVARD OPENS NEW PSYCHOLOGY FIELD

"By establishing a chair for the teaching of dynamic psychology, Harvard has marked an epoch in the history of the science," declared Dr. Morton Prince '75 in a special interview yesterday. Dr. Prince has been appointed first incumbent of the new chair of Dynamic and Abnormal Psychology announced last Monday. His term of office will begin next fall.

Dr. Prince has been engaged in the practice of medicine in Boston since 1980. He has written a number of books, all dealing with aspects of psychology. Asked to explain further the significance of the new chair, he continued:

Harvard First in Field

"Harvard is the first university in the world to make any such effort towards teaching the vital or dynamic side of psychology. Hitherto, all that has been taught and investigated is the static branch of the subject, which has not in itself any essential significanes.

"We have been trying for a number of years to induce the universities to enter upon the new field, because of the necessity for the more exact scientific technique of the laboratory, in addition to the inadequate clinical methods on which medical men must rely.

To Investigate Abnormal

"The psychology which we are instituting at Harvard next year deals with the motivating forces within the personality and the reasons for mental reactions. It answers the question, why? Whereas the present academic psychology deals only with the question, what? We shall go into the sub-conscious, investigating dreams, inhibitions, repressions, instinctive reactions and also such abnormal mental phenomena as feeble-mindedness and states of extreme excitement and depression.

"As dynamic and abnormal psychology is a field without precedent or tradition, it may be of interest to know the plan or organization by which it will function and carry out the intended purposes. The primary aim will be scientific research. Most of the results are gleaned from a study of abnormal cases, since these are merely exaggerations of the normal. Another way that research can be carried on is by experimentation with people who are hypnotized, thus getting at their sub-conscious reactions and impressions.

"The subjects for all investigation and research in this field must, of course, be human beings. Clinical material will be obtained from the Boston hospitals, and a small quasi-clinic will be established to which physicians may send suitable cases which require study and are unable to pay fees.

To Include Clinical Work

"The second purpose of the new department will be to offer courses to undergraduates in Abnormal and Dynamic Psychology. The lectures will be given by me next year, and will be clinical in their nature as far as possible. That is, I intend to bring actual cases into the lectures to illustrate what I am talking about. I expect, from my past experience that a great many students will also offer themselves for experimentation along hypnotic lines.

Memory a Likely Subject

"To show what sort of subject I shall treat let us consider the matter of memory. Here is one of the richest and most fascinating fields for investigation and study imaginable. And it is particularly interesting in its sub-conscious elements.

"Take for instance a lapse of memory. By hypnosis we can bring out of the subconscious mind everything which happened while the memory was not consciously functioning. It is then the function of dynamic psychology to find out the forces, usually anxiety or other mental conflict, which have caused the lapse and to study the processes which the mind passed through while the conscious memory was in abeyance.