Social Class and Mental Illness. A Community Study: By August B. Hollingshead, Ph.D. and Fredrick C. Redlich, M.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1958. 442 pp.

The statistical and sociological findings in this community study are often likely to give the professional reader the feeling that he has known these matters all the time but could not prove them. With this publication comes the first rigorous approach to problems that should concern every psychiatrist. Psychoanalysts will discover more of the factors delimiting their available patient population from this research team's brush with such queries as: What is the sociological background of analysts and analytically oriented psychiatrists? By what paths do patients and psychiatrists of specific persuasion join? What kinds of people seek treatment? What makes a 'good' patient?

New Haven, Connecticut is the locus of this prodigious work begun in 1948 to inquire into two interlocked rubrics: Is mental illness related to social class? Does a mentally ill patient's position in the status system affect how he is treated for his illness? These findings pertain precisely only to this one New England metropolitan community, and other sections of the country might have skewed