Basic forensic psychiatry

50

Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine

Overall, a very good book - and I can't resist repeating from my review many years ago of a precursor of this volume, 'a copy should be in the glove compartment of every police surgeon's Rolls-Royce'! PROFESSOR BERNARD K N I G H T Professor of Forensic Pathology University of Wales, Cardiff, UK

Social support and psychiatric disorder: research findings and guidelines for clinical practice T. S. Brugha (Ed.) 1995. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 361 pp. £50. ISBN 0521 442 389. This book brings together a wide range of international contributors who have looked at the evidence that social support is important for physical and psychological health as well as for survival. The book states two aims: to enable those who have read it to approach the psychosocial aspects of the care of their clients or patients with a greater knowledge and understanding of the complex processes involved and to stimulate an expansion into formal clinical evaluation. I believe it achieves both of these aims. The book consists of four parts. Part one deals with the concepts and origins of social support. There are chapters from Camille Lloyd on understanding social support within the context of theory. She discusses some personality factors which may play a role in the stress-distress relationship and different coping and defence styles. Lorna Champion provides a chapter on social support as a developmental phenomenon. Chris Brewin writes on the cognitive aspects of social support processes, and Paul Gilbert writes on the role and function of social support from an evolutionary perspective. Part two looks at lessons from selected observational studies such as social support as a high risk condition for depression in women, the importance of social support among college students and teenage peer networks in the community as sources of social problems. Part three looks at lessons from intervention studies and details these. There are contributions about expressed emotion, measurement, intervention and training issues from Liz Kuipers, case management and network enhancement of the long-term mentally ill by G. Thornicroft, William Breakey and Annabelle Primm, a test of the social support hypothesis by Bryanne Barnett and Gordon Parker, and an intervention study on social network and mental health by Odd Stefan Dalgard, Trine Anstorp, Kirsten Benum and Tom Sorensen. Part four deals with intervention principles and recommendations, and has a chapter by Glenys Parry on social support processes and cognitive therapy. The final chapter is on social support and psychiatric disorder and recommendations for clinical practice and research. This book would make a valuable contribution to a library as it is up-to-date and provides some stimulating argument on an invaluable though difficult and often neglected area of research. VIVIENNE SCHNIEDEN Randwick, NSW, Australia

Basic forensic psychiatry By Malcolm Faulk. 2nd Edn, 1994. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications. 371 pp and index. £24.95 ISBN 0 632 03321 5. Dr Faulk sets out to discuss topics of particular relevance to trainee psychiatrists working for the membership, but there is a good deal to interest police surgeons in this book. Ever greater time is devoted to assessing the vulnerability of prisoners during detention and questioning by the police. Dr Faulk is a medical inspector of prisons, so may be expected to have significant insights; if so, he is disappointingly reticent. In describing the ethics of forensic psychiatry and recommending a format for reports, he does show a clear recognition of the problems faced by doctors who have statutory duties to disclose information about patients without their consent. It is perhaps time that the duties of doctors assisting the police were codified: should the rights of a prisoner/patient to confidentiality be made absolute, or should the public interest be given greater weight? Dr Faulk's text was written before the General Medical Council published The Duties of a Doctor, but it is unlikely that he would have been helped by that publication wherein the peculiar difficulties of the forensic medical practitioner are scarcely given thought. He says, 'Medical skills should not be used for non-medical purposes.' Surely forensic psychiatrists, like police surgeons, do this whenever they take part in an investigation or write a report! Law and practice are moving onwards on most of the topics discussed. The Mental Health Act is in need of substantial revision or replacement after all the significant work (medically and legally) of the past dozen years; here, the historical development of legal and society attitudes to mental illness is neatly set out. There is no pretence at in-depth coverage of forensic psychiatry, but the book is a useful source on, for example, psychopathy and dangerousness. A strong feature is the list of good references after each chapter. There are some irritating misprints, but which book does not contain them? DR DAVID McLAY Chief Medical Officer, Occupational Health & Welfare Unit, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK

Judicial Review in Scotland. By T. Mullen, K. Pick, T. Prosser. 1996. John Wiley: Chichester. 138 pp. £35. ISBN 0 471 96614 2. Applications for judicial review have become a more commonly used instrument for the aggrieved citizen (or often the stranger within our gate). The procedure is relevant whenever injustice appears to the petitioner to have been done to him by failure of proper procedure and where other remedies, such as appeal through the courts, have been exhausted. From time to time, the threat of action suffices. There are fundamental differences in approach, as between Scotland and England. In the latter jurisdiction, an essential preliminary is to seek leave, a step unnecessary in