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These 500 pages are devoted to a full exposition of both the statics and the dynamics of current psychiatric diagnoses. The text has three main sections. The first section is devoted to the basic concepts about psychiatric practice directly with mental patients and with the overlap of psychiatry and medicine in various physical conditions. In the second section the author covers in great detail
DSM-III-R Axis I diagnoses, replete with discussion of the accuracy of each concept, its psychodynamics, appropriate treatments, and careful venture into the need for understanding and then using countertransference information to each particularly defined entity. The third section does the same for Axis II diagnoses.
This book is clearly defined as prepared for use by psychiatric residents. As such it should serve well as an introduction to the myriad situations that will confront the newcomer to psychiatry. There may be some confusion due to a too broad presentation of psychoanalytic theories regarding each and every condition in DSM-III-R. An experienced reader might find it a good review of Freudian and current psychoanalytic literature. In fairness to the author the text does include some reference to psychological theories of behavior as well as the inclusion of individual expressive psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, and the like.
The book contains adequate references to the current figures in psychiatry, such as Kohut, Kernberg, Rindsley, Bellak, and many others. In fact the bibliography for each chapter is quite long, sometimes several pages. The author is quite careful to refer to the author of any given theory about behavior, sometimes so much so that it is difficult to determine what the author himself is thinking.
Psychoanalysis is downplayed and not discussed as such. Now and then psychoanalysis is recommended for this or that condition. But psychoanalytic thinking is used throughout, with little or no reference to psychological theories. Those in residencies th