An Address on Medical Psychology
In beginning the work of this Section, over which I have the honour to preside, I shall confine myself to a few introductory remarks of a general character, leaving to those who will come after me the more exact scientific work of which we have fair promise in the papers that are to be read. The occasion seems fitting to take a short survey of the position of medical psychology in relation to certain important questions of the day, and to consider the bearing which its progress must eventually have upon them. Permit me, then, to ask you, first, to look back a little way at what medical psychology was, in order the better to realise what it is, and, if possible, to forecast something of the character of its future work. A glance at the past will show how great a step forward has been made, and may yield some reason for congratulation; a glance at the present, showing, as it cannot fail to do, how small a proportion the gains bear to what remains to be acquired, will prove that as yet we have rather discovered the right path than made much way on it—that we are, in truth, only on the threshold of the history of medical psychology as a science.