Review of Law and mental health: International perspectives. Volume 1.

Reviews the book, Law and mental health: International perspectives. Volume 1 by David N. Weisstub (1984). This is the first volume in a series designed to provide an international perspective on central issues in law and mental health. The editor, David N. Weisstub, is a professor of law at Osgoode Hall and was the founding editor of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. He is well qualified to accomplish his stated goal of establishing an international network of scholars and increase communication between countries. The first volume, however, focuses primarily on American jurisprudence. Weisstub argues that this is appropriate because the United States "has been a forerunner and, indeed, has functioned as a testing ground in the field." Subsequent volumes will include research reviews and examinations of legislative and judicial trends in other countries, focusing on topics such as malpractice, deinstitutionalization, guardianship, and competency. The present volume is comprised of six chapters, each on a different topic with the exception of two chapters on criminal responsibility. Few readers will be interested in all the chapters, but anyone interested in mental health law will find something of interest. The chapters are of uniformly high quality and the book is an excellent reference work. Since there are only six chapters, it may be of use to potential readers to have a brief overview of each. This volume (and the ones to follow) should prove to be a valuable reference for psychologists interested in legal issues. It may also be put to good use in graduate seminars in law and psychology because of the breadth of issues covered in the volume. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word recognition: From letters to meaning.

Reviews the book, Basic Processes in Reading Visual Word Recognition by Derek Besner and Glyn W. Humphreys (see record 1990-99017-000). While there has been an increase in the amount of work on many different aspects of reading, as Besner and Humphreys point out in the overview to their book, the vast majority of the research on the topic of reading in the past twenty years has been concerned with the processes involved in word recognition. For this reason, Besner and Humphreys have attempted to bring together studies on topics which are both relevant to current debates in the field of word recognition, and which are likely to be important for future developments in the field. They have compiled an edited volume consisting of their overview and eight additional chapters. The editors have attempted to span the continuum of processes involved in word recognition and thus have included chapters which cover topics ranging from the visual analysis of words, to those on the influence of semantic factors on word recognition. The authors of these chapters comprise an impressive list of researchers in the field of word recognition, with the majority of chapters being authored by leading researchers on the topic. Given the stature of the authors and the range of topics covered, in theory this volume should provide a very thorough overview of current theory and research on reading. There is no question that each of the chapters is interesting and important in its own right. However, in practice the volume as a whole fell somewhat short of my expectations. The different tacts taken by different authors has resulted in a very uneven coverage of the current debates in the field. Notwithstanding these criticisms, I am sure that the majority of researchers in this field will consider this volume to be an important contribution. The book would provide a very useful addition to graduate courses in cognitive sciences and as a supplemental text for an undergraduate course on the psychology of reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Current topics in rehabilitation psychology.

Reviews the book, Current topics in rehabilitation psychology edited by Charles J. Golden (1984). Every few years an edited volume of chapters on rehabilitation psychology is published. The latest contribution, Current Topics in Rehabilitation Psychology, edited by Charles Golden, is written for students, professionals, and educated lay people who want to learn about some of the recent advances in the field. Golden makes clear, and quite correctly so, that the volume is not a comprehensive coverage of all the areas of research, training, and service that are in the domain of rehabilitation psychology. Instead, after two chapters giving an overview of the field, several specific areas are addressed. They include management of chronic pain, cognitive retraining in brain damaged patients, rehabilitation and aging, adjustment of people with spinal cord injury, vocational training of people with severe developmental disabilities, biofeedback, and the role of personality in attitudes toward those with physical disabilities. The book would have profited greatly from more careful editing. Although the quality of writing varies from author to author, the grammatical errors, misspellings, and garbled sentences are uniformly so numerous that they sometimes distract the reader from the valuable content of the chapters. Nevertheless, the book is worthwhile as one that gives an overview of several specific topics and supplies rich bibliographies to those wishing to learn more. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Learning About Learning Disabilities, Third Edition.

This article reviews the book, "Learning about Learning Disabilities, Third Edition" (see record 2004-21912-000), edited by Bernice Wong. This book is comprised of a selection of chapters authored by well-known authors in the field of learning disabilities. The book was developed for use with advanced undergraduate and graduate students with the intent to provide current information soundly based in research in the field. The chapters in the book are organized into three thematic sections. The first section deals with conceptual, historical, and research aspects of learning disabilities. The second section comprises chapters on reading comprehension, writing, math, social competence, strategy instruction, working with adolescents, issues in service delivery, and developing communities of practice. The third section focuses on a life span approach to learning disabilities. This book does what it purports to do. This is a well put together selection of readings. It may not be appropriate for advanced undergraduate students with no previous background knowledge or experience with learning disabilities due to the level of the book. The information provided in each chapter is current and soundly based in research. In addition to the research presented, the majority of the chapters also include practical implications of the research to teaching settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Strategic management of technostress in an information society.

Reviews the book, Strategic Management of technostress in an information society edited by Amarjit S. Sethi, Denis H. J. Caro, and Randall S. Schuler (1987). According to the editors, the contents of this book would not only provide managers with a "set of useful and practical strategies for managing technostress by organizations and their members" (p.xi), but would also serve as a reference for other stress coping (sic) scholars and practitioners, as well as a textbook for students in university management and executive development programs. A second attraction of this book was that its editors had played an unusually active role in writing it, thereby presumably avoiding the uneveness and lack of integration that plagues edited books. The reviewer does not have hands-on experience in developing organizational strategies for handling technological innovation and consequently am not as confident in criticizing the chapters devoted to this topic. But in reading these chapters the reviewer began to question whether their authors had any more experience than than the reviewer did. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Children's peer relations: Issues in assessment and intervention.

Reviews the book, Children's peer relations: Issues in assessment and intervention edited by B. H. Schneider, K. H. Rubin, and J. E. Ledingham (1985). In 1984, a conference was held in Ottawa on the topic "Research Strategies in Children's Social Skills Training." It was international in scope and brought together many of the field's leading researchers. The papers presented at that conference form the nucleus for this volume of chapters, which has been carefully edited by three of the conference organizers. Substantial additions to the conference material are apparent, and the purpose of the book has been redirected somewhat to examine currently emerging research on children's social relations with regard to its implications for assessment and treatment of childhood social dysfunction. The resulting volume is one that is highly rewarding to the reader. The editors and authors have achieved the difficult task of integrating many discrete programmes of research around a few common themes. All of the chapters are well written, and together they present a representative selection of current research that is methodologically sound and of scholarly significance. As such, this volume is a timely and thought-provoking collection of chapters that will be of considerable interest to students and researchers in the fields of children's social relations and social skills training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of emotion regulation.

Reviews the book, Handbook of emotion regulation edited by James J. Gross (see record 2007-01392-000). The purpose of this edited volume is to bring the reader and the scientific community up-to-date on the burgeoning field of emotion and particularly how it is regulated. The book comprises 30 chapters divided amongst seven traditional sections within psychology: foundations, biological bases, cognitive foundations, developmental approaches, personality process and individual differences, social approaches, and clinical outcomes. Gross very nicely captures the range of topics and issues surrounding the topic of emotion and emotion regulation in this edited volume. Gross is to be congratulated for taking on the task of editing such a timely and important volume for the field. Given the scope of the volume, it should have wide appeal to researchers as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students in the areas of personality and social psychology, human development, child clinical psychology, psychiatry, and cognitive and affective neuroscience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A quarter century of normalization and social role valorization: Evolution and impact.

Reviews the book, A quarter century of normalization and social role valorization: Evolution and impact edited by Robert J. Flynn and Raymond A. Lemay (see record 2001-00115-000). The appearance of this new book by Flynn and Lemay presents a timely opportunity to reassess the status and value of the concepts of normalization and social valorization as they pertain to people with developmental, psychiatric, and intellectual impairments. The book consists of an introduction and 29 chapters organized into seven parts: historical evolution of the concepts (4 chapters), critical perspectives (4 chapters), links with social science theory and research (5 chapters), dissemination through training and education (3 chapters), international impact (9 chapters), personal impact (3 chapters), and the future (1 chapter). This organization holds together reasonably well. As might be expected, the chapters vary in both precision of writing and robustness of content. This book has value at many levels. Most immediately, it provides a useful historical overview and summary of concepts that have had an impact on human services in the latter half of the past century. At an intermediate level, it stimulates thinking about conceptual research issues that have immense relevance to psychology generally and to the enhancement of life opportunities for marginalized citizens. At a deeper level, the debates and discussions prompt serious thought about the fundamental forces driving social policy and about the ways in which humans relate to each other. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of workplace violence.

Reviews the book, Handbook of Workplace Violence by E. Kevin Kelloway, Julian Barling, and Joseph J. Hurrell Jr. (see record 2006-03272-000). According to the Cambridge University dictionary, a handbook contains "the most important and useful information about a subject." This Handbook of Workplace Violence admirably fits this definition. In the book, the authors have assembled 26 chapters that summarize the very vast domain of violence research that pertains to the workplace. Each chapter, all written by academic researchers who are deeply involved in the field of workplace violence, summarizes a unique aspect of workplace violence. The authors of the handbook are organizational psychologists and they approach this topic from a social-organizational perspective. This handbook would, thus, be of great interest to similarly-minded psychologists. However, the scope of the handbook, covering violence in multiple settings and from multiple perspectives, would attract readers from a variety of psychological domains. In essence, this handbook has a broad readership and ably meets its goal of "summarizing the state of current knowledge and charting the course for future research." Conceptualizing workplace violence broadly, it provides a wide-ranging survey of the current state of the field. Highlighting both the enormity of the problem and the lack of extant information on the causes and course of workplace violence, this book provides important directions for future research. It is a book that would be valuable to any student or researcher interested in pursuing questions about the nature, course, and prevention of violence in the workplace. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Children's social behavior: Development, assessment, and modification.

Reviews the book, Children's social behavior: Development, assessment, and modification, edited by Phillip S. Strain, Michael M. Guralnick, and Hill M. Walker (1986). This book is an edited collection of 10 well-crafted chapters that review important research in the development, assessment, and modification of children's social behavior. Not only is the topic highly relevant to school psychology, but practitioners will appreciate the fact that the book is comprehensive, current, thoughtfully organized, and concisely written. The volume is organized into three areas of children's social behavior: development, assessment, and modification. Chapters in the first two sections tend to be written from the researcher's perspective, and readers should draw their own implications for practice in the schools. Potential applications are many though, and a careful study of these chapters will lead to a more productive and empirically defensible assessment of social skills in schools. Chapters in the modification section also review research studies but are more pragmatic and reflect the authors' clinical experiences. They provide excellent preparation for any practitioner intending to intervene in children's social development. The issues, resources, and procedures discussed in Children's social behavior can serve as a comprehensive reference for school psychologists whose practice includes the management of social behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Negative outcome in psychotherapy and what to do about it.

Reviews the book, Negative outcome in psychotherapy and what to do about it edited by Daniel T. Mays and Cyril M. Franks (1985). Negative outcome in psychotherapy is a topic of great importance to the field. The treatment of this topic by Mays and Franks is a comprehensive and ambitious one. Their goals, as outlined in the Introduction, are to 1) generate a definition of negative outcome, 2) bring some preliminary closure to the negative outcome debate, 3) identify contributing variables and 4) offer suggestions for research and treatment application. They proceed to do this through an edited volume, consisting of 14 chapters, which fall into six sections and an Appendix. Of the goals that the editors set for themselves in the Introduction, the most important one, to this reviewer's mind, was not even mentioned--that is, the development of a theoretical framework from which future research can develop. It is this synthesis that makes the book particularly valuable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Relapse prevention.

Reviews the book, Relapse prevention by G. Alan Marlatt and Judith R. Gordon. The book is well suited for its intended audience-clinicians and researchers working in the field of addictions. Clinicians and program developers will appreciate the clear clinical conceptualization of the addiction treatment program and the comprehensive and detailed array of treatment methods that are directly linked to the model. Clinicians working in specialized addiction programs will benefit from the chapters from the contributing authors which outline programmatic approaches for dealing with these behaviors. Clinicians outside the addiction field certainly will find the model and strategies useful in conceptualizing and facilitating the maintenance of behavior change in all types of clients. For researchers, the book will be a rich resource of research ideas and future research directions, and a model for integrating research with practice. It is still uncommon, but much appreciated, to see a true scientist-practitioner like Marlatt who uses research findings to improve treatment and treatment observations to pose research questions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Social discourse and moral judgment.

Reviews the book, Social discourse and moral judgment by Daniel N. Robinson (see record 1992-98331-000). It is not every day that a group of such original scholars in any field come together to debate a topic of genuine significance. Social Discourse and Moral Judgment is the result of such an occasion, a symposium dedicated to examining social constructionist contributions to the study of moral judgment, conducted at Georgetown University during March of 1991. Although all of the articles in this volume assume some level of familiarity with psychological theory and vocabulary, Social Discourse and Moral Judgment should appeal to the philosophical novice as well as those well-versed in social constructionist theory. While it is entirely impossible to adequately describe or summarize the complex argument and debate presented in this volume in so brief a space, some examination of the issues discussed should serve to illuminate its worth. Although there are many themes which reoccur throughout the book, discussion of only three (agency, individualism and relativism) are dealt with in this review. As a genuinely significant contribution to research in morality and moral judgment, this book has only two drawbacks. The first, which Robinson acknowledges, is simply that there were not more selections presented from the final discussion, and that the selections presented are sometimes sketchy and hard to follow. The second drawback is that there is no critique of the social constructionist position from a clearly hermeneutic or other continental perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of social psychology.

Reviews the book "Handbook of social psychology" (Volumes I and II), edited by G. Lindzey (see record 1955-03817-000). This book is a major attempt to present, summarized in handbook fashion, what is known theoretically, methodologically, and substantively in the area of social psychology. The various chapters include contributions by psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and statisticians. Most of the chapters are written carefully and thoughtfully. It is a good and worth-while book to have in print. Many students and research workers will have occasion to refer to it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The complexity of learning disabilities.

Reviews the book, Learning about learning disabilities (2nd ed.) by B. Wong (1998). This book is a reasonably comprehensive survey of the state of the art. The book has many worthwhile chapters and will be of interest to advanced-level students, investigators, and clinicians in the field. This book is intended for advanced undergraduate or graduate students. It is a collection of chapters; the individual chapters are quite good but the authors of these individual chapters appear not to have read the other chapters. The student using this book and even the more seasoned investigator or clinician familiar with the field will find it very frustrating that there is no synthesis across chapters. Students reading this book will not have the background knowledge and sophistication of the authors of these chapters. Although it is suggested that this be used as a textbook, it is missing some very important information, and there is not much synthesis. I think that some students may become frustrated at the lack of both integration and consistency among the diverse chapters. There is a technical problem in that a significant number of bibliographic entries are incorrect. Compiling a reference list is tedious but not to have an accurate one is frustrating to the reader who may want to consult some of the references. No book is perfect. However, this book is an interesting balance of many positive and some troublesome features. It is comprehensive and provides a view of a fascinating field. The authors and editor are to be congratulated for their efforts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cognitive psychology.

Reviews the book, Cognitive Psychology by Guy Claxton (1980). This is a bold attempt to provide a well-integrated review of the problems and prospects of modern cognitive psychology. In general, the book succeeds although one may disagree with the directions that are foreseen. The book consists of nine papers by eight authors. Six chapters plus an overview cover traditional topics within cognition while two excellent chapters extend the discussion to motor control and cross-cultural perspectives. Together the chapters are '... meant to be a guidebook to organizing one's thoughts, and a life-raft to cling on to when in danger of drowning in the sea of detail'. This is an excellent overview for graduate students or scientists in related fields; it will prove difficult for all but the brighter undergraduates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The psychopath: Theory, research and practice.

Reviews the book, The psychopath: Theory, research and practice edited by Hugues Hervé and John C. Yuille (see record 2006-11788-000). This book begins with an historical overview of the construct of psychopathy and then works its way through a variety of important issues, including measurement, etiology, behavioural manifestations of the disorder, typologies, and practice considerations. A few notable exceptions notwithstanding, this text is a fine primer on psychopathy: It includes a number of outstanding chapters and other important issues in the area of psychopathy receive solid treatment. Although there is occasionally some drop-off in quality, I suspect that even the less outstanding chapters in this book would prove informative for students, lay consumer groups, and clinicians who do not routinely work with psychopaths. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)