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At a time when biological factors are emphasized in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, it is refreshing and rewarding to have read a work that explores other facets of psychopathology. This book is a veritable gold mine of information regarding the influence of culture on behavior.
The book is extremely well organized. It consists of 30 articles that had been published during the years from 1967 to 1978. They were selected from such journals as The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Sociometry, Social Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychiatry, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and other works usually unfamiliar to, or unavailable to, the practicing psychiatrist. Naturally, the quality of writing does vary as in any multiauthored work, but the papers are all quite readable and useful and were obviously carefully chosen.
The editors have done a stupendous job of organization that makes the work useful for reference as well as a text for study. They have divided the subject matter into nine general topics: General Conceptual Issues; Methodological Issues; Personality Development; Sociocultural Structures; Sociocultural Changes; General Psychopathology and Diagnosis; Specific Psychiatric Disorders; Psychiatric Care; and Psychiatry as a Social Institution. Each of these subheadings is introduced by a brief essay, and each of the papers in the section has a brief introductory summary. Each of the sections is followed by a number of other related references with a brief synopsis of each. Finally, there are 53 pages of references and an Index of Names and of Subjects.
From all this material it would be difficult to select the most intriguing points. Certainly the final conclusion is that without discrediting the biological nature of human behavior, culture still must be evaluated and considered. When we learn that there are different reactions to medications, we recognize that a total account of an individual and his course through heal