Review of Disgust and its disorders: Theory, assessment, and treatment implications.

Reviews the book, Disgust and its disorders: Theory, assessment, and treatment implications by edited Bunmi O. Olantunji and Dean McKay (see record 2008-14016-000). The fairly recent shift toward a focus on disgust is nicely reflected in the title of this book. The goal of Disgust and its disorders is to assess the current state of disgust-based research and to highlight future suggested research directions to enhance our understanding, and thereby treatment of problems associated with the emotion disgust. Accordingly, this book contains 14 chapters and is divided into three separate but related sections: 1) Theory and Assessment; 2) Response Patterns; and 3) Disorders of Disgust. For the most part there is good flow and continuity across chapters relative to other edited volumes in which disjointedness may be an unwelcomed feature. A consistent theme in the chapters of this book is the call for more and more rigorous research involving the emotion disgust in a context of psychological disorders. Given recent increases in researchers’ interest and understanding of disgust, it seems likely that disgust-based research will continue to grow and foster the proliferation of This volume will certainly have a positive impact in this regard, and future volumes will ideally continue to explore issues raised here within as well as further examine different disgust domains (e.g., moral disgust). In sum, Disgust and its disorders is a delightful read—despite its “disgusting” content. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)