Uses and Abuses of Psychology was published by Penguin Books in 1953, and it became Eysenck’s first popular success — a combative, witty, and deliberately provocative attack on the unscientific pretensions of clinical psychology. The book’s central argument is simple: most of what the public believes about psychology is wrong, most of what psychologists claim to know has never been properly tested, and the most prestigious branch of the profession (psychoanalysis) is essentially a pseudoscience.
Eysenck’s critique of psychotherapy was his most controversial claim. He presented evidence (later disputed but influential) that neurotic patients who received psychotherapy recovered at the same rate as those who received no treatment at all — implying that the expensive, time-consuming process of psychoanalysis was therapeutically useless. This claim infuriated the clinical establishment, but it also stimulated the development of outcome research that eventually transformed the field.
The book covers a wide range of topics — personality testing, vocational guidance, propaganda, aesthetics, hypnosis, and crime — in each case distinguishing between what psychology has scientifically established and what it merely claims. Eysenck’s prose is clear, direct, and often deliberately offensive: he took pleasure in attacking received wisdom and respected authority, a trait that made him both widely read and widely hated.
Collecting Uses and Abuses of Psychology
First edition (Penguin Books, London, 1953): Paperback original.
Market values:
- First Penguin edition: $15–$40
- Later editions: $3–$10