Behavioural management of obesity

77

BOOK REVIEWS

The psychotherapy chapter, twice as long as any other, is concerned purely with ethical problems in a dynamic framework, especially those of transference. and counter transference. There is little in this book for the behaviour therapist and nothing directly relevant to behaviour therapy itself, even from the American context, with which the authoress appears unduly preoccupied. One looks in vain for mention of the Wyatt vs Stickney case, a legal wrangle about behaviour modification extending over 3 years, and establishing in case law, basic ethical principles concerning aspects of behavioural intervention. Papers on ethical probhms in token economies receive no mention, nor those on the very relevant issues in aversion therapy. Skinner’s own writings on ethical issues are similarly ignored, and not one of the many ethical problems which have confronted the reviewer’s students in clinical practice (such as the patient referred for sex therapy, who confessed to being a wanted rapist) receives a mention. However, despite the many disappointments this book holds for hehavioural psychologists, it does provide some interesting topics worthy of further discussion, and in the absence of any competing title specific to our profession, can make a contribution to postgraduate teaching, especially where dynamic psychotherapy is taught. LIONEL HAWARD

M. HERSEN, R. M. EISLERand P. M. MILLER(Eds): Progress in Behavior Modifiarion. Vol. 19. Academic Press, Orlando, Fla (1985). Pages ix + 304. E49.50. This book is the most recent addition to the series Progress in Behavior Modification edited by Michel Hersen and colleagues. The series has already earned an indispensable place on most library shelves due to its provision of comprehensive and frequently incisive reviews of the behaviour therapy literature. It is difficult, therefore, to assess a single volume outside the context of the whole series. However, the present volume reflects the diversity of the whole series. Indeed, if one were to list the contents of the present and previous volumes, one would rapidly appreciate the wide range of problems to which behaviour therapy has been applied, especially within the U.S.A. A particularly pertinent example from Vol I9 is the chapter by Jones and Haney entitled Behavior Therapy and Fire Emergencies: Conceptualization, Assessment and Inte~ention. I doubt whether this particular topic would generate the same heat from U.K. practitioners. Nevertheless, having read the chapter, I believe that colleagues in the U.K. should perhaps look farther afield when applying their crafts than traditional psychological disorders and emergencies. Also included in the current volume are the following reviews: Neuropsychology and Behavior Therapy (Horten and Miller); Progress in Parent Training (O’Dell); On the Nature and Measurement of Agoraphobia (Williams); Childhood and Adolescent Obesity: Progress in Behavioral Assessment and Treatment (Wells and Copeland); Behavioral Pediatrics: Research, Treatment, Recommendations (Lutzker and Lamazor); and The Assessment of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia (Chiodo). GRAHAM

TURPIN

STORLIEand H. A. JORDAN:El~aluation and Treatment of Obesity. Pages x + 159. f 18.50. Nutririon and E.uercise in Obesity Management. Pages xii + 155. f17.50. Behavioural Management of Obesity. Pages xiv + IS?. f17.75. MTP Press. Lancaster

J.

(1985). These three volumes are the first published of an intended series of five collated as a reference guide in the interdisciplinary assessment and management of obesity for health professionals. Chapters are written by experts who originally gathered together at the Obesiry-Weighf Control Track of the 1982 La Crosse Health and Sports Science Symposium. Subjects vary from overviews on general problems to focused issues shot through with hard data and practical points referring to diverse yet related arenas, such as measuring body composition (Jackson, Vol. I), exercise testing and training for the obese (Foss and Strehle, Vol. II) and assertiveness training (Zirkel, Vol. III). In all three volumes information is clearly presented-with some excellent small diagrams-well-sifted, up to date and more than adequately referenced. Communication, as Zirkel might say, is at all times in the assertive style (i.e. making statements in a way that ‘enhances the self and affirms the rights of the other individual’). The overall message. often repeated, is that the causes, manifestations and treatment of obesity are both various, and themselves are variously combined, in each individual. The approach of workers in the field must therefore be multidi~ipiinary. Although long-term follow-up studies are few on the ground, diet. exercise and behavioural techniques must be combined for effective weight loss and maintainance of the loss. is the combined wisdom communicated. Throughout, the volumes are punctuated by valuable questionnaires which any keen professional might at once adopt to enhance his/her scientific approach to management. For example, there is the patient profile plus 3-day food intake record for nutritional assessment provided by Macedonio (Vol. II); the self-motivation assessment scale for determining the likelihood of exercise compliance given by Franklin in Vol. III; and lists of questions that test knowledge of weight-control principles, exercise and fitness and nutrition and dieting (Storlie, Vol. I) which could prove exceedingly useful in clinical practice. A solid core of basic data is also made available to us from different disciplines, incorporating such divese details as the bivariate distribution of the non-linear relationship between body density and the sum of seven skinfolds (Jackson, Vol. I); and body fat values with associated fat cell weights of obese females (Pemberton, Vol. I). Some chapters must be picked out for special mention- the clinical assessment of the obese (Pemberton, Vol. I); a review of popular diets by Patricia Hodgson in Vol. II and, by the same author, a review of environmental sabotage in the following volume;

78

BOOK

REVIEWS

nutritional management of the obese (Macedonia, Vol. II); assertiveness training (Zirkel, Vol. III) and stress management (Curtis, Vol. III), The writing here was particularly clear, concise and comprehensive. In only a few instances did authors slip into the traps of overinclusiveness, patronizing or dogmatic tone, or poorly backed ‘statement-izing’ which the field of obesity seems to easily able to elicit. I would certainly recommend these volumes to all interested in the field, and who can afford the prices. JOAN FELDMAN

L. WEISKRANTZ (Ed.): Animal Intelligence. Clarendon

Press, Oxford

(1985). Pages vi + 223. f32.00.

This book contains the papers given at a Royal Society Meeting in 1984, so the chapters are also available in Phil. Trans. R. Sot. B. Although the book is beautifully produced, it is all too clear that the chapters are conference lectures (with all the constraints of time and scope that this entails) written when the content of the other contributions was unknown, and the book does not form a satisfactory whole. If I wanted my students to grasp the excitement of this area, in which important advances are being made, I would direct them to recent Dahlem Workshop reports (e.g. Anima/ Mind-Humun Mind, edited by D. R. Griffin) rather than to Weiskrantz’s book. It is always difficult to guess before the conference what other contributors will say-but it is a pity that the editor did not get the authors together at the close and ask them to use their papers as a stepping-off point for much more substantial chapters which took into account material discussed by other contributors. Terrace and Macphail might have agreed about whether pigeons are win-shift or win-stay organisms, even if it is unreasonable to expect Terrace and the Gardners to see eye-to-eye, while those contributors who deal with laboratory studies of learning (for most of whom the word intelligence seems to have been overshadowed by more salient terms from the jargon of comparative psychology) might have been pursuaded to focus more directly on the question at issue. The Chance-Jolly-Humphrey hypothesis is that primate intelligence evolved for use in the context of normal social life, and the most exciting papers in this book are those which look for evidence of intelligence outside the laboratory. In particular, Cheyney and Seyfarth (who showed that vervet monkeys associated particular alarm calls with particular types of predator) have scored another first, by showing the monkeys do not associate the track of a python or a leopard’s kill in a tree with danger, although they will respond to cattle vocalizations, which signal the presence of Masai tribesmen. This suggests that their regular use of auditory cues to designate objects and events in social interactions may facilitate their use as representational cues in other contexts. We may wonder whether the differences. described by Savage-Rumbaugh, between the (keyboard) language abilities of Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus, may depend on the fact that her pygmy chimpanzee was already able to understand (though not produce) spoken English when keyboard use began. The papers by the Gardners, Savage-Rumbaugh and Terrace on linguistic apes and the theoretical difficulties raised by this work are also useful. Although they do not answer the question, what is intelligence and how does it evolve, they deal with issues which are closely related-indeed, in Macphail’s view, without language a human being would be no more intelligent than a chimpanzee. In this area we have made real progress in the 20 or so years since Washoe first came to the notice of the scientific community. But for the rest, as Mackintosh comments. comparative psychology seems to have little to show for 100 years of study of animal intelligence. Overall, if this is the state of the art. it is disappointing. P. G. CARYL

S. AGRAS: Panic: Facing Fears, Phobias, and Anxiety. Freeman,

New York

(1985). Pages

151. f13.95

Complete with comic strip illustrations, this book presents a highly intelligible account of anxiety disorders. It is clearly aimed at the lay-public by giving a simple outline of research on etiology and forms of treatment. Sufferers from phobias and anxiety states should benefit from reading this text but it also provides a concise summary of the state of the art for trainee psychiatrists and psychologists. GUDRUN SARTORY

J. E. MAZUR: Lenrning and Behavior. Prentice-Hall,

Englewood

Cliffs, N.J. (1985). Pages xii + 387. f31.00.

Here is a new, weighty and inevitably expensive text by a distinguished American behavioural scientist designed for introductory and intermediate level courses in learning, conditioning and the experimental analysis of behaviour. Should it find a place in most college and postgraduate reference library shelves? The answer, on balance, is yes. The book has up-to-date, carefully organized chapters on all the standard learning issues and, for good measure. includes the chapters Learning by Observation, Learning Motor Skills and Choice and Time Allocation. The author writes well: he gives definitions and explanations of all technical terms and uses many lively illustrative examples drawn from everyday