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In the preface the authors state, 'Two ways were open to us: either to write a book predominantly intended for psychiatrists or one predominantly intended for general physicians and dermatologists. In accordance with our view that dermatologists should deal with their own patients and consult psychiatrists only in exceptional cases, we decided in favor of the latter course. For this reason we have deliberately avoided technical terms' (p. x).
This intention could not have been suspected without reading the preface.
The authors begin their General Discussion with an introduction to 'psychosomatic' concepts, quoting liberally from Alexander, Cobb, Halliday, Weiss and English, and others. This is followed by a review of the evolution of 'psychosomatic' concepts in dermatology, written by the 'dermatological writer' and dealing mainly with the dermatological literature. The extensive psychoanalytic literature is mentioned only in the second part of the book, in the chapters dealing with specific conditions, written by the psychiatric partners of the team. The authors do not lay claim to completeness; yet one misses in the discussion of the psychoanalytic literature Freud's classic description of what was obviously a case of acne and his stress on the basic difference between the structure of such symptoms and the common conversion symptom,1 a difference which can be verified in a great number of dermatoses. One also misses the name of Felix Deutsch. The authors proceed with an excellent chapter on physiology of the skin, reviewing our present-day knowledge of the transmission of various impulses to the skin.