Abstract

This book is an extremely comprehensive review of the status of contemporary psychiatry, both in its theoretical and clinical aspects. While heavily dominated by a psychoanalytic bias, it explores other theoretical and clinical approaches. Included in its contents are the historical beginnings and later development of psychiatry, psychological testing and its utility for psychiatry, nosology of psychiatric disorders, various types of therapies currently in vogue, the organic as well as the psychotic disorders, psychopathic and sociopathic behavior, drug and alcohol addiction, and the general usefulness of psychiatry to medicine, law, and society. The authors generally discuss the investigations and proposals of other behavioral scientists, and then offer their own view of the topic at issue. Of interest to students of philosophy are: considerations relevant to the mind-body problem, problems of normative statements inherent in attempts to determine criteria for distinguishing normal from abnormal behavior, and general matters of methodology, confirmation, and other problems in the philosophy of science which pervade all of behavioral science as well as physical science. The authors may have their personal axe to grind, but freely admit to the tenuous theoretical status of every psychodynamic system so far advanced. Their style is tedious and sometimes cumbersome. However, the book is an extremely contemporary survey, in some depth, of the state of psychiatry, and serves as a valuable reference for both lay and professional reader.—L. P. K.