"Review of Pure types are rare": Comment on book review.

My book Pure types are rare: Myths and meanings of madness (see record 2007-08930-001) may have piqued some members of the mental health community; thus I was not entirely surprised by the caustic review that appeared in the January 1985 issue of Canadian Psychology, nor do I wish to engage the polemics or the personal asides therein. I am impelled, however, to respond to the allegation of "repeated failure of professional scholarship." The reviewer provides three substantive examples. In the first, he objects to the citation following my statement that post-mortem studies have failed to find neurological correlates of senile dementia, and implies that the study cited did find such correlates. Actually, the study was inadequate for the question inasmuch as statistics were not presented for senile dementia exclusive of other conditions, and normal controls were not used. The second maintains that I underestimated the significance of a concordance rate of 53% for the diagnosis of schizophrenia between two psychiatrists examining the same patient, and says it should actually be "somewhere beyond even the .00000001 level." My point, however, was that in vivo, where more than 50% of mental patients are diagnosed schizophrenic, a 53% concordance rate represents chance. Third, Professor Burd relates several sentences of mine to make it appear that I questioned the validity of the co-twin data on genetic factors in schizophrenia on the "curious grounds" that similar data have been obtained for a variety of behavioural and personality traits. I will comment on the statement "There are but a dozen references to articles in established professional journals." I did not attempt to deduce the criteria for "established," nor did I count journals, but I did ascertain that there were 112 citations in the text, comprising 80 separate sources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Human Subject in the Psychological Laboratory.

Reviews the book, The Human Subject in the Psychological Laboratory by Irwin Silverman (see record 1978-20076-000). In this book, the author presents his assessment of the laboratory experiment following years of research on the social psychology of the psychological experiment. Silverman makes his views clear from the outset: the laboratory is "an excellent place to study laboratory behavior; but by virtue of this it is suited for little else", and he relentlessly pursues this thesis throughout the book. Through the seeming enormity of evidence and Silverman's constant attention to his thesis, the reader is brought to the precipice from which the laboratory experiment must surely fall. The uncritical reader will find Silverman's arguments well-written and effectively woven together in a relatively concise, easily readable manner. Any criticisms of the book must focus on errors of omission rather than problems of style or misrepresentation of fact. The important questions seem to concern a need to better understand how an experimenter can conduct meaningful research with human subjects. This understanding will not come about from proclaiming that other methods are better or from research which has only the objective of documenting the inadequacies of current methods. More than anything else Silverman's book suggests the need for a new direction for increased research on the social psychology of the psychological experiment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The integrative power of cognitive therapy.

Reviews the book, The integrative power of cognitive therapy by Brad A. Alford and Aaron T. Beck (see record 1997-97373-000). This book makes a case for Cognitive Therapy (CT) as the integrative paradigm for psychotherapy. The writing instructs the reader in Cognitive Therapy and advocates its superiority to other approaches, especially the so-called psychotherapy integration movement of the Society for Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI), to integrate the diversity that is contemporary psychotherapy. The authors want to show us the way into the twenty-first century, and there are far worse guides for us to follow. CT is comprehensive in theory and technique, and it is sensibly grounded in empirical findings and to a lesser extent in cognitive psychology. Nonetheless, some will be reluctant to grant a monopoly to Beck and his successors. All should read this book and decide on which side of the issue to stand. At the very least, the reader will learn about CT or have previous learning consolidated, and will engage in a provocative debate about the nature and future of psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Pure Types are Rare.

Reviews the book, Pure Types Are Rare by Irwin Silverman. This is a provocative book. In it, Silverman, with ambitious abandon, sets out to denude the "medical model of mental illness" of its Emperor's Clothing. Unceremoniously, Silverman strips away the clothing of the medical model: psychiatric diagnoses are unreliable and invalid, labels are applied at the whim of the psychodiagnostician; mental illness bears no resemblance to physical disease, mental "illness" is a myth; biological causes of mental illness do not exist; biological treatments serve only to mask the real social and psychological causes of madness; psychotherapy is no treatment at all, there are no "treatment" principles or methods. What remains after Silverman's assault on the medical model? The medical model as Emperor remains, albeit naked. Silverman views the medical model and the entire mental health enterprise as an Emperor indeed: it is a political ideology that serves to control the socially and economically impoverished. Silverman goes on to offer an alternative to the medical model, a social psychological perspective on madness. He favours a view of madness as a social role which may be adopted by a person in the process of coping with life conflict. Silverman attacks practically all of the important assumptions and practices of psychiatry and clinical psychology. His radical social perspective on mental illness is at such odds with the common psychological perspective that, obviously, most psychologists, be they practitioners or researchers, will not like this book. Silverman insists on too radical a departure from our common beliefs. Despite the reviewer's disagreement with Silverman's radical social perspective on mental illness, he thinks that this is a worthwhile book. While the reviewer disagrees with his premise that clinical practices are exclusively or primarily political in essence, the reviewer does agree that there are essential social and political functions served by our practices. Silverman relentlessly and effectively uncovers important social and political meanings of diagnostic and treatment practices. This, according to the reviewer, is the strength of the book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Dynamic and abnormal psychology.

According to a statement in the author's preface, this book was designed primarily as a textbook for courses in abnormal psychology. It is the reviewer's impression, however, that it is unlikely to win a wide acceptance. His reasons for this judgment include 1) the book has grown from Professor Taylor's own course in the subject and his course seems rather unique, 2) the several chapters do not seem to hang together in a compellingly coherent way, and 3) many of the subjects introduced receive so scanty a discussion as to be unintelligible to the naive reader and simply uninformative to the moderately sophisticated reader. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of How the mind works.

Reviews the book, How the mind works by Steven Pinker (see record 1997-30233-000). In this book, the author writes with optimism and excitement about recent progress in psychology, but with despair about the human condition. The scope of the book is stated briefly: "I will try to explain what the mind is, where it came from, and how it lets us see, think, feel, interact, and pursue higher callings like art, religion, and philosophy" (p. 3). The reader will be disappointed in many of these explanations: the book dwells on the already-expansive topics of what the mind is, and where it came from. As for the rest, we are told that humans have innate knowledge of optics, logic, mathematics, physics, botany (p. 377), and even psychology (p. 329). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Not a page-turner, but a very intellectually-challenging book.

Reviews the book, How the mind works by S. Pinker (1998). How the mind works provides an excellent example of what I consider a very good, thought-provoking scientific book. It is true that I often put the book down, sometimes for long periods. But during those down times I still continued to read, in the sense described earlier. That is, I continued to consider the thoughts and issues raised by Pinker, often discussing them with colleagues, in an attempt to decide for myself where I stood on the issues. I found that I agreed with some of Pinker's views while disagreeing with others. However, I will not recount my opinions here, because I expect a different reader would have very different opinions for the reasons described above. Instead, I will highlight the characteristics of Pinker's book that make it such a non-page-turner. In my view, the strengths of the book are rooted in three characteristics: (a) the perspective, (b) the subject matter, and (c) the writing style. The combination of interesting and relevant issues, an engaging writing style, and a strong stance on every issue make the book very challenging intellectually. I was not comfortable moving on to some new issue before I had formed an opinion on the previous one. Often this required me to talk with colleagues and at the end of the title. Perhaps it would not reflect the extend the debate beyond the book and into the faculty conviction with which Pinker holds his opinions, but it lounge. At other times it pushed me to simply take some would better reflect the challenge to readers to form their time to reflect on the issues. Perhaps the highest accolade own opinions. that can be given to a scientific book is that it forces one to think and form opinions. How the mind works is clearly deserving of that accolade. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reply to Stagner.

This is written in response to Ross Stagner's comments (see record 2005-11890-003) concerning the publication of books of readings. First, it is my experience that it is far easier to author a book than edit readings. I don't assume that people who write the original articles that finally find themselves in a book of readings are any more creative than the editors. I don't know how much of a reputation any one gets from authorship or editing a readings book. As for "good solid cash" (to use Stagner's words) I have yet to see some and my experience is not unique. I have paid out a considerable amount of money in secretarial fees alone. If I recoup the money I have expended I will be fortunate. As for so-called profits, if I send one copy of the book to each author and his co-author(s) who contributed an article for a book of readings--well, there goes the "good solid cash." Second, there are many articles that are rescued from the scrap pile by a book of readings. My suggestion is that after the editor of a readings book recoups his expenses in preparing the book, copies of the book be sent to clinics or libraries which are on a limited budget. Copies may even be sent to some of the "underprivileged nations." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Encounters with great psychologists: Twelve dramatic portraits.

Reviews the book, Encounters with great psychologists: Twelve dramatic portraits by John H. Kunkel (see record 1989-97254-000). John Kunkel has given us a new form of fiction, one which is also intended to lure the lay reader toward an appreciation of that scientific enterprise which is Psychology, and, toward an appreciation of the men who have made it what it is today. The book recounts twelve separate fictional discussions, each of which is between an historical figure in Psychology and some largely imaginary others. These others feed each protagonist not only considerable quantities of good food and drink, but they feed convenient questions as well, questions which allow each great man to show us his wisdom, his gentleness, and his love of humanity. Kunkel's book is not all fiction. It is in part a history of psychology in biography. Each narration is preceded by an abbreviated history of the man and his ideas, setting the scene. Each narration is followed by a debriefing, in which some of the fiction is separated from fact and the references that Kunkel used to spawn his romance are shared with the reader in the form of recommended further reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The clinical documentation sourcebook: A comprehensive collection of mental health practice forms, handouts, and records.

Reviews the book, The clinical documentation sourcebook: A comprehensive collection of mental health practice forms, handouts, and records by Donald E. Wiger (see record 1997-08921-000). According to the reviewer, the author of this book accomplishes six challenging tasks. He 1) provides the essential forms for operating a sound clinical practice; 2) incorporates the key data elements in the forms with a rationale describing use and purpose; 3) keeps the manual user friendly without flooding the reader with a lot of unnecessary text; 4) includes both blank forms and a computer disk for ease in modifying forms; 5) provides forms that lend themselves for ease in data collection for research and practice profiling and; 6) offers the book and software at a very reasonable price. Dr. Wiger makes a cogent case that his forms and clinical documentation will satisfy the demands of managed-care organizations. The reviewer highlights some areas of the book where improvement is possible. He then concludes that this book gives a private-practice clinician or a behavioral-health group/agency the tools to operate a practice ethically, legally, and in line with accreditation standards and third-party payer requirements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Schreber: Father and son.

Reviews the book, Schreber: Father and son by Han Isra?ls (see record 1989-98605-000). In 1911, Sigmund Freud published a long paper about a German judge, Daniel Paul Schreber (1842-1911), who had been an inpatient in three psychiatric clinics from 1893 to 1902. Beginning in the 1940s and 1950s, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts began to give intensive attention to the life and illness of Schreber, an interest that has continued to the present day. Now Han Isra?ls, has written a compelling and most unusual book about Schreber and his father, Moritz Schreber. From one point of view it is a historical tour de force, bound to evoke admiration from any professional historian for its research and scholarship. From another vantage point, it is an example of historical overkill. The dominant theme of Isra?ls's book is an exposé of the corrupt scholarship that has grown up around Moritz Schreber and hence Isra?ls's argument that after his death Moritz achieved fame and notoriety far out of proportion to his actual contributions. A second, minor theme is Isra?ls's agreement with the discovery made by the psychoanalyst Niederland that Moritz Schreber's writings provide information about the way he reared his children: "It has become apparent that the method of upbringing has left traces in the psychotic illness [of Paul Schreber]." When all is said and done, we are left with a book which, in spite of its compelling scholarship, yields almost no new information about Judge Schreber that would help us to understand him better. Furthermore, Isra?ls's book is likely to have little impact on the modern and incorrect views about Schreber's father. In the end, Isra?ls's book stands as a cautionary tale to lazy researchers and sloppy scholars. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hard overcoming being proclaimed a genius.

Reviews the book, Neuropsychology After Lashley. Fifty Years Since the Publication of Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence by J. Orbach (1982). Lashley's place in the history of psychology is by no means settled. Many view his influence as primarily negative. This view of Lashley is echoed in Harlow's comment to Hebb (see Orbach) that Lashley just couldn't grow out of playing the archetypal critic, the role that first led to his fame, and by Konorski, who baldly stated that "the man did more harm than good" to an acquiescing student of Lashley's who shall remain nameless (a conversation overheard in a New York City taxi, 1964). This attitude is also perhaps silently supported in this book by some of the students and associates of Lashley who fail to acknowledge his existence in their chapters. As a whole, however, a much more positive assessment of Lashley's legacy arises from this interesting book. Orbach relies on various sources and, in the first 100 pages or so, gives us Lashley, the person. Orbach's section includes a survey of some of the issues in which Lashley became embroiled. This treatment, however, is far too cursory and is one of the least satisfying parts of the book. As for Lashley's place in history, perhaps it can be maintained that he killed neuropsychology. Nevertheless, as this book makes clear, Lashley left us with a grand number of eminent students who just as decidedly brought about the resurrection! (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Speak of me as I am: The life and work of Masud Khan.

Reviews the book, Speak of me as I am: The life and work of Masud Khan by Judy Cooper (1993). Controversy surrounding M. Masud R. Khan the person usually crowds out serious consideration of his psychoanalytic writings. In Speak of me as I am, Judy Cooper, a psychotherapist in London, convincingly demonstrates that, despite his life, Khan's work has enduring value and would amply reward anyone who studies it. She has a difficult task, to give the reader a familiarity--and even sympathy--with Khan while not minimizing his always off-putting and frequently repulsive behavior. One would think that the task would be all the more daunting because she herself had an analysis with Khan from 1967 to 1973. Far from providing an idealized portrait of her former analyst, however, Cooper openly discusses Khan's shortcomings. The book is so successful in part because her years of closeness with him enable her to convey an insider's sense of what Khan was like. In a compact space--only 122 pages of text--Cooper achieves her main purposes: familiarizing the reader with Khan's life and work while also evaluating his contributions to psychoanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The clinical interaction: with special reference to the Rorschach.

Reviews the book, The clinical interaction: with special reference to the Rorschach by Seymour B. Sarason (1954). The argument of this discursive but always piquant book runs about as follows: Rorschachers too often jump from test scores to a prediction of behavior. The reader finds obvious flaws in each step of the argument. The whole thesis depends upon setting up straw men. The empirical studies mentioned are interesting--and the book is valuable as a compilation of recent validation experiments--but most of them measure the usefulness of the Rorschach against some paper and pencil test, with shocking unconcern for the known flimsiness of such instruments. Reading Sarason's introspective accounts of his analysis of six Rorschachs, the reader who is himself a Rorschacher will find little evidence that what Sarason does is different from standard usage. It would seem that the incendiary tone occasionally adopted in the theoretical section of the book was inappropriate, however stimulating it may have been. That more such examples of the interpretative process should see the light of print is very desirable, however, and their inclusion alone might justify calling attention to this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An idea whose time is already here.

Reviews the book, The search for oneness by Lloyd H. Silverman, Frank M. Lachmann, and Robert H. Milich (1982). If theory is to be more than just fodder for theoreticians, it must lead itself to clinical practice, either in direct use with patients or by intersecting with clinical observations. The search for oneness does both. The authors show through deduction, and illustrate with clinical vignettes, that "oneness", or the lack of it, can be seen as a root cause of many disturbances involving ego functioning, choice of defense, core conflicts, and character traits. They also show that exploitations of this fact can lead to therapeutic gain through interpretation and through empathy. In empathy, oneness fantasies are stimulated and gratified through joining with the patient, especially when the therapist is evocatively able to enter the patient's subjective world to see things from the patient's point of view. The book is well written; this, in conjunction with the novelty of its central idea and the strength of the evidence adduced to support that idea, makes the book a persuasive, evocative document. After reading the book, many clinicians will likely do as I did: listen for, and sometimes stress, oneness and separation issues with their patients to a greater extent than usual. The book supplies the reader with the bonus of clear and pith abstractions of several theoretical approaches; it serves as a mini-text. Its brevity demonstrates how much paper and eyesight could be saved if other authors exercised similar attention to synthesis and conciseness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pribram's ideas.

Reviews the book, Languages of the Brain--Experimental Paradoxes and Principles in Neuropsychology by K. H. Pribram (see record 1973-03824-000). Pribram's book might be better called Pribram's Ideas. In some 400 pages the author describes his ideas on memory, awareness, motivation, emotion, language, caring, association cortex--most everything and the brain. Many will hail Pribram's book as an important source of ideas. There may be some readers however, who will be upset by Professor Pribram's book. His tendency to use neologisms, the inclusion of illustrations and experiments that are indeed elegant but often irrelevant, his failure to really consider the ideas of others, the inclusion of a twentieth chapter apparently on the grounds that a round number for a book is desirable, the rather hasty application of findings from computer technology, genetics and optics to the brain, the discovery by the author of the organization of the book at the stage of the final draft, his failure to document sources of information, just might upset them. Pribram is an accomplished investigator and an acknowledged leader in the field. It is a pity that Pribram, with so many exceptional abilities, has chosen to display them in so disappointing a form. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Living in the shadow of the Freud family.

Reviews the book, Living in the shadow of the Freud family by Sophie Freud (see record 2007-07641-000). This book is fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is "written and edited" by Sophie Freud, Sigmund Freud's distinguished granddaughter, Professor Emerita of Social Work at Simmons College. The book will be of interest to anyone who wishes to learn more about the life and culture of the creator of psychoanalysis. The author challenges some of the assumptions made by Freud biographers, including the belief that his nursemaid stole pennies from the family, resulting in her firing and imprisonment. This book reveals the importance of writing. The author reminds us that the "psychological literature suggests that we should help old people to remember their childhood", and the book demonstrates the truth of this observation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Neural integration of physiological mechanisms and behavior: J. A. F. Stevenson memorial volume.

Reviews the book, Neural Integration of Physiological Mechanisms and Behavior: J. A. F. Stevenson Memorial Volume edited by J. Gordon Mogenson and Franco R. Calaresu (1975). This book consists of a series of articles dedicated to the memory of Professor James A. F. Stevenson and to his view that an understanding of physiological regulations must be sought within the context of the overall functioning of the whole organism. How Stevenson came to develop this approach to the study of physiological mechanisms, and his contributions to science, both inside and outside the laboratory, are the subjects of the first two introductory essays written by F. C. Macintosh and J. R. Brobeck. In the third introductory essay, E. F. Adolph provides a brief historical account of how the concept of internal regulation of physiological activities arose, and stresses the importance of considering the regulatory actions of organisms in all physiological and behavioral studies. The reviewer would recommend the addition of this book to your library. The articles are of excellent calibre, and it is probably a matter of personal interest as to which ones the reader will consider the most useful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)