In From Anxiety to Method in the Behavioral Sciences, Devereux suggested rethinking the question of the relation between the observer and the observed.
In addition to using his own experiences, Devereux closely studied Claude Lévi-Strauss' Tristes tropiques [A World on the Wane], a classic work of his anthropology studies among indigenous peoples in Brazil; Georges Balandiers Afrique ambiguë [Ambiguous Africa : Cultures in Collision]; and Condominas' L'Exotique au quotidien.