author
Paul Bousfield
1880–1957
A British physician and writer, he explored the mind in clear, practical books on psychoanalysis, feeling, and self-deception. His work brought early 20th-century psychological ideas to general readers in an accessible way.
1 Audiobook
The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure
by Paul Bousfield
About the author
Born in 1880, Paul Bousfield was a British physician who specialized in nervous diseases. Contemporary editions of his books describe him as physician to the London Neurological Clinic, a former demonstrator of morbid anatomy at St. George’s Hospital, and a former medical officer to the American Women’s Hospital for Officers.
He wrote a number of psychology and psychoanalysis books for a broad audience, including The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis, The Omnipotent Self, Pleasure and Pain, and The Mind and Its Mechanism. His writing often aimed to explain difficult ideas simply, especially questions of personality, emotion, and the hidden motives behind human behavior.
Bousfield died in 1957. Although he is not widely known today, his books offer a useful window into how psychology and psychoanalysis were being explained to ordinary readers in the early twentieth century.