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Miller has written a book for the layman which surpasses the customary variety of treatises on popular psychology. It covers virtually the entire field of psychiatry, displays a wealth of experience and knowledge, and is stamped with the empathy and sympathy which characterize the true physician. It contains much that is of value for the psychiatrist as well as the layman.
Miller is a psychoanalyst who employs the existential point of view in his psychotherapy, but he is active in many branches of psychiatry. He offers a lesson to those psychoanalysts who devote themselves exclusively to that field, and urges the trial of the full therapeutic armamentarium available today. He feels that the person who sticks to one modality in too persistent a manner is “the kind of person who traps himself in a charismatic posture which makes it necessary to continue doggedly whatever regime is initiated” (p. 222). He gives clear directives. “In the management of depression, denial of a medical approach with full access to antidepression medicines and, when necessary, hospitalization in a psychiatric unit is a serious mistake” (p. 176). “No psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, psychiatric nurse, or religious counselor deserves the title ‘professional’ unless he or she can, personally or through ready referral, make available medications for any patient who fails to respond to other forms of therapy. Period. Exclamation point!” (p. 226). There is nothing ambiguous in Miller's recommendations.
This readable volume is recommended to psychiatrists and psychoanalysts for their own edification as well as one of the best expositions for patients and other interested people.