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Both handbooks are welcome as guides for layman as well as aides to students interested in a brief survey of mental health.
A brief perusal of these two paperbacks revealed discrepancies which could have been eliminated especially in the second edition of The Layman's Guide to Psychiatry. It is stated on page 180 that Dr. Lauretta Bender “uses puppet shows to re-enact traumatic situations.” For the past 25 years, Dr. Bender has not used puppet shows in her
work with emotionally disturbed children, but has devoted her time and efforts to the study of childhood schizophrenia diagnosis and therapy. She is a recognized authority on this disease entity. Dr. Brussel duly notes her classification of childhood schizophrenia into three groups.
The vital problem of intelligence is compressed into one-and-a-half pages. The mentioning of Dr. Wechsler's contribution sounds like a lefthanded compliment. The author states that the Wechsler test measures the intelligence of adolescents and adults, but the really important differences between the Revised Stanford-Binet Scale and the Wechsler Scales are not mentioned. Perhaps the layman does not have to know that with the Revised Stanford-Binet Scale the child is compared with the total United States population, while the Wechsler Scale compares the tested person with a representative sample of his own age group.
On page 108 and following, Dr. Brussel writes about “lay counseling and therapy.” Being a physician, he naturally believes that “the therapist must be oriented and fully grounded in all phases of medicine before he attempts treatment of an emotional and/or mental illness.” The arguments he uses to shore up his position are as outdated as last year's snow. It is useless and futile to re-argue these issues.
Commendable features of this book are the chapter on “Hallucinogens” and the comprehensive glossary.
The Layman's Dictionary of Psychiatry is easy to read because explanations and interpretations of terms are printed in differ