Psychiatry and Medical Practice in a General Hospital: Edited by Norman E. Zinberg. (New York: Int. Univ. Press, 1965. Pp. 364 + xii. 68s.)

Psycho-analysts have accepted the fact that the psycho-analytic method proper can be employed in only a very small number of cases and that the future contribution of psycho-analysis to therapy will depend largely on whether psycho-analysts are willing to work side by side with clinical psychiatrists, physicians, and surgeons. An increasing number of trained analysts are already working in hospitals where they are engaged in applying and teaching the psychodynamic approach. Grete Bibring, who combines the posts of Psychiatrist-in-Chief of the Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Mass., of Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Harvard Medical School and of Training Analyst in the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, has been a leader in this field. In this volume she and her associates report on the development and operation of a psychiatric service in one of the leading American general hospitals. There is an important article by the late Edward Bibring about dynamic psychotherapeutic methods applicable in general hospitals. Other articles deal with the teaching of psychodynamic principles to medical school instructors, with psychiatric rounds in the medical wards, the teaching of psychotherapy to non-psychiatrists, the psychological approach to the dying patient, the role of psychological factors in physical illness, the reactions of the medical students and of the physicians to the