author

Paul Bousfield

1880–1957

A British physician who wrote clearly and ambitiously about psychoanalysis, self-deception, sexuality, and the emotional life. His books bring early 20th-century psychological debates to general readers in a direct, practical way.

1 Audiobook

The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure

The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure

by Paul Bousfield

About the author

Paul Bousfield, born in 1880, was a British physician and medical writer. Sources connected with his books describe him as a physician to the London Neurological Clinic, a former demonstrator of morbid anatomy at St. George’s Hospital, and a medical officer to the American Women’s Hospital for Officers.

He is best known today for works such as The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis, The Omnipotent Self, Sex and Civilization, Pleasure and Pain, and The Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Functional Nervous Diseases. These books show a writer interested in bringing psychology and psychoanalytic ideas to readers beyond a strictly specialist audience.

Bousfield’s writing sits at the meeting point of medicine, psychotherapy, and popular psychology. Even when his ideas reflect the assumptions of his era, his books offer a useful window into how mental health, personality, and human behavior were being discussed in the 1920s.