The Nurse and the Mental Patient. A Study in Interpersonal Relations: By Morris S. Schwartz and Emmy Lanning Schockley. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1956. Pp. 289. $3.50.)

Recently the social context of mentally disturbed patients has been receiving increasing attention, and such books as The Mental Hospital by Alfred H. Stanton and Morris S. Schwartz (reviewed in this Journal, 1956, Pt. VI, p. 496) and From Custodial to Therapeutic Patient Care in Mental Hospitals by Dr. Milton Greenblatt, Dr. Richard H. York, and Dr. Esther Lucile Brown have dealt admirably with the problems involved.

In The Nurse and the Mental Patient the authors have maintained the already high standard set and give a most excellent account of the difficulties facing those who nurse patients in mental hospitals. Problems of actual interpersonal difficulties are lucidly and skilfully set forth, and examined in a special way with resultant positive means towards helping severely mentally ill patients becoming available to the nurse. Indeed some of the authors' comments on interpersonal relationships, i.e. transference—counter-transference, might well be taken to heart by all analysts. The notes on the silent patient, for example, are well worth full study.

The authors are certainly obviously dedicated to their work and the only possible criticism might be that they have an undue optimism about the extent to which skilful handling alone can in fact produce structural change in the patient. Nevertheless this is an outstanding book and deserves the highest possible praise.