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Explorations in typing psychotics
Book reviews
391
HUGH MULLAN and IRIS SANGIULIANO: Group Psychotherapy and Rehabilitation Mary E. Switzer). Chas. C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1966. 325 pp., $12.00.
(Foreword
by
THIS book gives an account of a team approach to alcoholism. The organization of a communityorientated clinic is outlined and the comprehensiveness of the services offered is impressive. The contributors discuss the special problems encountered in all phases of therapy: they start at the point where effort is being concentrated on motivating the reluctant new arrival who is uncertain as to whether he really wants help other than with the immediate crisis, and chapters carry right through to deal finally with the termination of treatment. The energy, intelligence and imagination of these authors is characteristic of so much recent American work on alcoholism. GRIFFITH
Explorations pp., 60s.
in Typing Psychotics,
Edited by MAURICELORR. Pergamon
EDWARDS
Press, Oxford, 1966. 241
THE editor and chief contributor to this volume starts from the assumption, passed on to him by his American psychiatric colleagues, that clinical diagnosis is “relatively unimportant and outmoded”. In the circumstances, any spirited psychologist unfamiliar with the foreign clinical literature would behave as Lorr has done and look for alternative taxonomies, since Some form of classification is obviously essential. The critical clinician from countries where the ability to make a diagnosis is regarded as an essential psychiatric skill, and where making a diagnosis is not necessarily less reliable than aiming at a score-profile on a Lorr scale, will not be much impressed with the statistically-derived syndromes described in this book. Perhaps it will eventually be shown that the syndrome of “Intropunitiveness” has one kind of aetiology and requires one kind of treatment, while the syndrome of “Anxious-Disorganized” type has quite different characteristics. In that case, the concept of illness will have crept back and the only question will be whether the new nosology is empirically more useful than those in present use. No such evidence is adduced in this book so that, in the meantime, clinicians may sit comfortably back and wait. .I. K.
STEPHENBLACK: Man and Motor Cars. 63s.
An ergonomic
study.
WlNG
Seeker and Warburg, 1966. 373 pp.,
THIS book is a biological study relating anatomy, physiology, and psychology to the design of the motor car. Those who are not mechanically minded will be chiefly interested in the first and last of the four parts into which the volume is divided. In these the author considers the problem of an ergonomic study of this kind. A short but interesting section describes the use of hypnotism as a means of finding subconscious opinions. Considerations of safety were, of course, a main motive in writing the book, and have a bearing on every aspect of the work. The middle parts are an ergonomic exercise in engineering, dealing with such things as the chassis, engine, brakes and steering control. Those who have a sufficient number of nuts and bolts in their make-up will be stimulated to argue with the author or to admire his perspicacity. If there is one topic on which we all consider ourselves competent to hold an opinion, it is that of the motor car, whether we hold this opinion in the capacity of driver, “Bentley boy”, self-designated expert, or as an individual striving to survive in spite of them. Almost everyone is, therefore, concerned with the subject of the book, and will find interest in it. One hopes it will be most carefully read by those who produce these symbols of our age. PETER H. SCHURR
391
HUGH MULLAN and IRIS SANGIULIANO: Group Psychotherapy and Rehabilitation Mary E. Switzer). Chas. C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1966. 325 pp., $12.00.
(Foreword
by
THIS book gives an account of a team approach to alcoholism. The organization of a communityorientated clinic is outlined and the comprehensiveness of the services offered is impressive. The contributors discuss the special problems encountered in all phases of therapy: they start at the point where effort is being concentrated on motivating the reluctant new arrival who is uncertain as to whether he really wants help other than with the immediate crisis, and chapters carry right through to deal finally with the termination of treatment. The energy, intelligence and imagination of these authors is characteristic of so much recent American work on alcoholism. GRIFFITH
Explorations pp., 60s.
in Typing Psychotics,
Edited by MAURICELORR. Pergamon
EDWARDS
Press, Oxford, 1966. 241
THE editor and chief contributor to this volume starts from the assumption, passed on to him by his American psychiatric colleagues, that clinical diagnosis is “relatively unimportant and outmoded”. In the circumstances, any spirited psychologist unfamiliar with the foreign clinical literature would behave as Lorr has done and look for alternative taxonomies, since Some form of classification is obviously essential. The critical clinician from countries where the ability to make a diagnosis is regarded as an essential psychiatric skill, and where making a diagnosis is not necessarily less reliable than aiming at a score-profile on a Lorr scale, will not be much impressed with the statistically-derived syndromes described in this book. Perhaps it will eventually be shown that the syndrome of “Intropunitiveness” has one kind of aetiology and requires one kind of treatment, while the syndrome of “Anxious-Disorganized” type has quite different characteristics. In that case, the concept of illness will have crept back and the only question will be whether the new nosology is empirically more useful than those in present use. No such evidence is adduced in this book so that, in the meantime, clinicians may sit comfortably back and wait. .I. K.
STEPHENBLACK: Man and Motor Cars. 63s.
An ergonomic
study.
WlNG
Seeker and Warburg, 1966. 373 pp.,
THIS book is a biological study relating anatomy, physiology, and psychology to the design of the motor car. Those who are not mechanically minded will be chiefly interested in the first and last of the four parts into which the volume is divided. In these the author considers the problem of an ergonomic study of this kind. A short but interesting section describes the use of hypnotism as a means of finding subconscious opinions. Considerations of safety were, of course, a main motive in writing the book, and have a bearing on every aspect of the work. The middle parts are an ergonomic exercise in engineering, dealing with such things as the chassis, engine, brakes and steering control. Those who have a sufficient number of nuts and bolts in their make-up will be stimulated to argue with the author or to admire his perspicacity. If there is one topic on which we all consider ourselves competent to hold an opinion, it is that of the motor car, whether we hold this opinion in the capacity of driver, “Bentley boy”, self-designated expert, or as an individual striving to survive in spite of them. Almost everyone is, therefore, concerned with the subject of the book, and will find interest in it. One hopes it will be most carefully read by those who produce these symbols of our age. PETER H. SCHURR