Motivation for Child Psychiatry Treatment: By Philip Lichtenberg, Ph.D., Robert Kohrman, M.D., and Helen MacGregor, M.S.S. New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1960. 220 pp.

This book presents a systematic investigation of one of the most important issues in psychiatric clinic and casework agency practice as well as in private practice of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, particularly with children. Thirty children and their parents were studied by a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, a clinical and social psychologist, and a psychiatric social worker in the child psychiatric unit of a large urban general hospital. These families, however unusual, all had some psychological problem and all had come at least once to the child psychiatric clinic. The authors aimed 'to learn what goes on in family life after the problem has been recognized but before the family enters our clinic. The essential focus of our interest is summarized in the phrase "motivation for treatment".' They sought understanding of untreatable cases, of pertinent aspects of treatable cases, of the foundations upon which psychotherapy builds, of the initiation of coöperation under special and stringent conditions, and of large-scale motivated action. 'The seeking of help and the seeking of health are motivated endeavors: they have impulsion,