You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The two authors, a psychiatrist and a sociologist, both trained in psycho-analysis, present in this book the results of their joint studies at Chestnut Lodge, the well-known private psychiatric hospital where the treatment is mainly psycho-analytical. The numerous aspects of life and work in a mental hospital seen from the viewpoint of all those making up the institutional community have been analysed in great detail. Administrative psychiatry receives due attention, as well as everything which happens to the patient in the 'other twenty-three hours of the day'. The way in which the interpersonal and group relations among the staff affect the patients was the special study. The book contains a wealth of material which is of the greatest importance for everybody concerned with mental illness. For those working in psychiatric hospitals, it is indispensable. This work will no doubt serve as a model for future studies in other closed communities. The authors are to be congratulated on having produced a book which is an outstanding contribution to the psychiatric literature and promises to become a classic.