Nothing is more common than the idea that we, the people
living in the Western world of the twentieth century, are emi-
nently sane. Even the fact that a great number of individuals in
our midst suffer from more or less severe forms of mental illness
produces little doubt with respect to the general standard of our
mental health. We are sure that by introducing better methods of
mental hygiene we shall improve still further the state of our men-
tal health, and as far as individual mental disturbances are con-
cerned, we look at them as strictly individual incidents, perhaps
with some amazement that so many of these incidents should
occur in a culture which is supposedly so sane.
Can we be so sure that we are not deceiving ourselves? Many
an inmate of an insane asylum is convinced that everybody else
is crazy, except himself. Many a severe neurotic believes that his
compulsive rituals or his hysterical outbursts are normal reac-
tions to somewhat abnormal circumstances. What about
ourselves?
Let us, in good psychiatric fashion, look at the facts. In the last