This book is an ambitious undertaking. It attempts to break away from the conventional pattern of continental textbooks, and aims at a synthesis of the psychodynamic, organic, and descriptive approaches in psychiatry. Two-thirds of the book were written by Professor Hoff, the present holder of the Chair of Psychiatry and Neurology at Vienna. The chapters on the neuroses were written by R. Brun, whose broad orientation is well known, and by Meng, who brings his mature knowledge and didactic experience to bear on a short exposition of the psycho-analytical theory of the neuroses and of mental hygiene. There is an interesting section by Benedetti on the psycho-analytic therapy on the psychoses.