The chapter opens with Dr. Rivers lecturing on the nature of the mind. He explains that there are two schools of thought, the "aristocratic" school and the "narcissistic" school. He says that the former is based on the idea that people are created by their environment and that they should be judged by how they act in the world. The second school of thought teaches that people should be free to act in whatever way they want. Rivers then goes on to explain that a psychiatrist is a person who helps the patient solve their own problems and not judge them by what the outside world thinks of them