This is a very interesting book, not only from a clinical point of view but also from an interdisciplinary perspective. The editor, Jeanne Magagna, was Head of Psychotherapy Services at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children for twenty-two years. This book represents the culmination of her work as a psychotherapist in the hospital's interdisciplinary team with children and adolescents with pervasive refusal syndrome. These patients are emotionally regressed and enter hospital in full retreat from the external world. ‘With their eyes shut and their bodies immobile they refuse food and stop talking’ (p.xx). How to approach them and help their families?

Bion, in his ‘Caesura’ paper (1977), advises the reader to approach life like a newborn, treating what is already known as a beta element that has to become alpha. Using Jung's typology, we could see Bion as encouraging the reader to enter new experiences with his sensation function, as a baby does. Magagna