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Somatic Aspects. Edited by Derek Richler. (London: Pergamon Press, 1957. Pp. 181. 40s.)
Research Techniques in Schizophrenia. Psychiatric Research Reports of the American Psychiatric Association. Vol. 5. (Washington, 1956.)
The first book is a collection of reviews by British experts on the state of research into somatic aspects of schizophrenia. The editor calls it an interim report on work in active progress. It fulfils this purpose admirably. There is no bias against the psychopathological approach which was outside the scope of this volume. The articles are concise and informative. They illustrate the incomplete and transitional state of knowledge in this field. The book is of interest to every student of schizophrenia, whatever his special interests.
Research Techniques in Schizophrenia is a record of five symposia held at a Regional Research Conference of the American Psychiatric Association. The subject of the first was 'experimental isolation', i.e. the effects of exclusion of external stimuli on healthy persons. One of the participants was Leo Bartermeier, who discussed the findings from the point of view of ego psychology. The second symposium was concerned with sociological aspects of schizophrenia, the third with statistics of mental hospital populations. The fourth, introduced by Betz and Whitehorn of the John Hopkins Hospital, discussed the discovery of a significant relationship between the personalities of the therapist and their results in the treatment of schizophrenics. This is an important study deserving of close interest from psycho-analysts. The last symposium was concerned with conditioning experiments in chronic schizophrenics.