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This book is a translation of the German edition published in 1940. The translators have included in the introduction some of the author's personal communications in which she described her intense interest in the sick as a child, and her personal psychoanalysis after becoming a nurse. These bits of personal information whet the reader's interest and help to keep it at a keen edge throughout the reading of the book.
The author describes a number of schizophrenic cases who seem to sense quickly her uncanny ability to enter understandingly into their illnesses. This rapport acts as oil on troubled waters. Disturbed restless patients become calm and tractable just by her being present. This empathy, described as “motherliness”, is one which in the author's opinion can be cultivated by all who nurse and treat the mentally ill. She grants that some may have it in a greater degree than others, but it is a quality which is a sine qua non for all those who serve the mentally sick.
Mrs. Boller-Schwing also shows how she was able to relate herself effectively to a number of patients who were undergoing insulin coma therapy. She stresses the fact that all patients require preparation and support for their various therapies, whether they be somatic or psychotherapeutic. If the personnel can mobilize their own capacities for love and tender care, and can bridge the gap that at times seems so great to the ill, then we shall be discharging our obligations fully as nurses and therapists.
This reviewer recommends this book highly to all those who are concerned with the mentally ill. He feels that it would serve as a very useful text for those nursing-therapeutic teams that contact our patients daily on the wards of our public and private mental hospitals.