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Cullberg is well-known in Scandinavia as a psychoanalyst and assistant professor in psychiatry with long experience of clinical and scientific work. Special expectations are connected with the book–and the reader will not be disappointed.
In the preface, the author declare his theoretical position. He says that the book is an introduction to psychiatry and he has taken a psychologicalhumanistic line where the world of the patient's experience is at the centre.
However, one can say that this book has turned out to be a modern classical text-book in psychiatry with all the ingredients: descriptions of neurosis, psychosis, “borderline”, psychosomatic disorders, problems of drug abuse, suicide and suicide attempts as well as descriptions of different psychotherapeutic methods and consulting psychiatry.
The chapters are all well written and didactically clear and engaging, rich in thoughts and impulses. Rightly, the author stresses the importance of empathy in the relation to the patient–a concept which has gradually grown in scientific importance. In the description of the narcissistic personality disturbances, the important contributions of Kohut are lacking; in the survey of diagnostics, reference to the American DSM-III system is lacking.
The author's basic psychoanalytic view naturally influences the content