"Review of The parent-child connection": Erratum.

Reports an error in "Review of The parent-child connection" by Charlotte Johnston (Canadian Psychology Psychologie Canadienne, 1989[Oct], Vol 30[4], 697-698). Arnold Rincover's affiliation with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education was incorrectly given as Associate Professor. He has been an Extramural Instructor at O.I.S.E. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2007-09101-001.) Reviews the book, The parent-child connection by Arnold Rincover (1988). The Parent-Child Connection is a well written book that offers valuable advice to help parents of young children evaluate and understand their children's behaviour. It also offers useful suggestions on managing child behaviour, although these parenting tips are most likely to be useful to those parents who least need them (i.e., those with numerous personal and social resources, whose children are presenting only minor behavioural difficulties). The two general themes of the book, child behaviour as communication and developmental norms as guidelines for deciding if behaviour is problematic, are well-suited to the purposes of a parent reference book. They offer an appropriate framework for discussing specific child behaviours and helping parents to determine if these behaviours are problematic in their children. This book is a welcome addition to the list of available parenting books, and may prove particularly useful for younger parents in need of accurate and understandable information about normal child development and behaviour. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The competent child.

Reviews the book, The competent child by Joseph M. Strayhorn (see record 1988-97840-000). The Competent Child is an outline of Strayhorn's approach to psychotherapy. The value of this text rests in its ability to present a clear and practical guide to therapy with children, while respecting the individuality of the therapist and client. In developing his approach to psychotherapy, Strayhorn was guided by two concepts: 1) all psychotherapy can be subsumed under a competence-based approach and 2) psychotherapy is essentially a learning-based intervention which involves the acquisition of skills. The first five chapters of the book provide the background for understanding the skills X method approach and instruct the reader as to how to assess a child's skills. The next three chapters are devoted to the application of the approach to children, adolescents and parents. In chapter nine Strayhorn discusses the difficulties one can have in producing positive results in therapy and attempts to deal with some of the difficulties one might run in to. The final two chapters propose ways of expanding the competence approach into preventive mental health and raise research questions. The book can be recommended to seasoned child practitioners looking to expand their repertoire of skills and to novices seeking to go beyond theory to practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Doomsday Book.

Reviews the book, The Doomsday Book by Gordon R. Taylor (1970). The subject of the book is ecology, people pollution, oxygen depletion, melting the ice cap, metals in the human system, the dangers of asbestos, and other noisy topics. The arguments are well documented and point to his ultimate concern which is not pollution as such but the rape of the biosphere and the radical change in the conditions of man which will follow. The reviewer is not optimistic about solving the problems of human behaviour posed by Taylor or that these problems will have impact on behavioural scientists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The herring gull's world.

Reviews the book "The herring gull's world," by Niko Tinbergen (see record 1955-00376-000). This book summarizes in nontechnical language a large number of observations and experiments by the author and his students on the behavior of herring gulls. Primary emphasis is placed upon social behavior including formation of breeding pairs, establishment and maintenance of a territory, courtship and mating, and rearing of young. The book achieves several objectives very effectively. First, it presents a clearly drawn picture of the behavior of gulls in their natural environment. Second, it illustrates authoritatively a method of analyzing behavior which differs in several important ways from techniques used by American psychologists. Third, the book exemplifies an attitude or philosophy of behavior study quite unlike that of experimental psychologists. The author's enthusiasm for behavior study combines with his long-standing affection for sea gulls to produce an eminently readable, entertaining, and informative volume, the attractiveness of which is enhanced by numerous excellent photographs of gull behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Psychological Assessment of Children.

Reviews the book, The Psychological Assessment of Children by James O. Palmer (see record 1970-20599-000). The Palmer text begins with a nod to the science-practitioner model. It is ego-oriented and depends heavily of the case history approach viewed within developmental constructs. Psychiatric taxonomy is largely avoided. The organisation of material covers 5 parts; I Hypotheses of Assessment, II Methods of Data Collection, III Procedure in Assessment, IV Analyses of the Assessment, and and V Assessment and Recommendations. The final chapters comprise a linking of assessment for psychotherapy and other kinds of intervention. Test manual kinds of materials, test norms, and scoring procedures are not covered. Nor are specific tests reviewed, the assumption being that the student will be receiving technical training concurrently. Palmer's purpose seems to be the provision of holistic kinds of conceptual frameworks within which the technician can function instead as a professional. Worth examining for class adaption. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The encyclopedia of child care and guidance.

A most distinguished editorial staff, advisory board, and large roster of contributors were involved in producing this massive book. Part I, the first two-thirds of the book, contains more than 1,000 alphabetically arranged, cross-referenced entries followed by a classified list of agencies and organizations and an annotated list of further readings. Part II consists of 30 excellent chapters on various aspects of child development and the social forces affecting children. The encyclopedia portion of the book is consistently addressed to the stereotype of a literate but completely naive parent. The style is chatty and nontechnical while the pages are decorated with an abundance. Certainly few will quarrel with the repetitive message: Be loving and patient but seek professional help when a real problem exists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The achievement motive.

Reviews the book, The achievement motive by David C. McClelland, John W. Atkinson, Russell A. Clark, & Edgar L. Lowell (1953). This book reports a swarm of little experiments, no one of which is more than a pilot study, but all of which are focused on one human need. The host of miniature demonstrations creates a fascinating pattern, from which the reader, like the authors, may learn "not only a lot about the achievement motive but other areas of personality as well". At the same time, the reader keeps glimpsing idea after idea for use in his own future research. He finds provocative inductive treatment of the nature of the achievement motive, its effects on behavior, especially school performance, and its origins in infancy and culture. All this "builds up the total picture out of many small experiments by a slow process of going from fact to hypothesis and back to fact again". It makes a methodologically fascinating illustration of what can be done inductively to explore a new field when the explorers possess the proper wit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The structure of English.

Reviews the book, The structure of English by C. C. Fries (1952). A grammar based on a consistent and meaningful analysis of language into significant component parts has long been a felt need both for linguists as well as for psychologists. The present work attempts to provide an empirical grammatical system free of the logical flaws that permeate contemporary grammar. The use of this book for a psychologist lies in investigations concerned with predicting the verbal behavior of the same people in different situations and of different people in the same situations. In this work lies at least the beginning of a solution to the problem of defining a unit in content analysis; it, furthermore, provides psychologists with a better means of comparing the functional relationships between different parts of speech in mental patients, since the parts of speech are more soundly defined than they have been in previous studies. Finally, in studies of learning, the knowledge of functional units of speech as defined by Fries can be used to study the laws of acquisition and extinction of verbal behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The voice of neurosis.

In this volume, the author focuses on attributes of voice, not on verbal communication or speech in the usual sense. Resonance, melody, register illustrate the elements emphasized. Not sharply organized or sufficiently substantiated to serve as a firm introduction to the method or as a convincing summary of research, the book nevertheless opens up intriguing potentialities. The major thesis presents voice as an expressive technique. Just as a graphologist uses handwriting, so Moses uses voice in all its varied aspects to understand personality. He compares a blind analysis with a Rorschach, and integrates other analyses with case material. His ideas about sound approaches to interpretation hold interest for those who use projective or expressive methods. The aspects of voice he emphasizes and his guidelines in analysis suggest that he may have hit on one of the potentially most fruitful areas of expressive behavior-with elements subtly modified throughout important stages of life history and remaining identiiably fixed in adult vocal behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The integration of behavior.

Reviews the book, The integration of behavior by Thomas M. French (1952). In this fundamental contribution to Ego psychology French undertakes to elucidate the workings of integrative mechanisms, using as illustrative material the record of the analysis of an asthmatic patient. The first volume--Basic Postulates (see record 1952-05902-000) presnts, in a first approximation, the conceptual framework evolved by French, exemplifying the "basic postulates" by instances taken from everyday normal behavior and from some of the patient's dreams. In the second volume--The Integrative Process in Dreams (see record 1954-05671-000) the author brings detailed analyses of several sequences of the patient's dreams, elaborating the integrative processes and the system of personal patterns reflected in these dreams. French's undertaking can be considered as one of the most valuable among the current attempts to evolve a systematic "ego psychology," centering it on the successfully integrated behavior, on constructive, rather than defensive, functions of the psychic organization. Through a judicious selection of concepts and theories that have both a high explanatory power and a close fit to facts, he tries to "bring into resonance" not only the rational and irrational behavior, but also many other dichotomous areas and approaches of the personality study. Personality psychologists will certainly welcome this attempt at overcoming the segregation of various approaches to the study of human behavior, even if one may disagree with the specific selections French makes, and regret the fact that the inclusion of so many theories and speculations tends to obliterate the main outlines of the work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The uprooted: A Hitler legacy.

Reviews the book, The uprooted: A Hitler legacy by Dorit Bader Whiteman (1993). This book is a documentary about the lives of Jewish escapees from Germany and Austria during the Nazi regime. Based on responses to an extensive questionnaire, the author recounts numerous stories of survivors living all over the world. Whiteman, a refugee herself, writes both as researcher and survivor. This is a bittersweet mixture of sadness, ghoulish nightmares, and survival of the Kinder (children) whose parents unselfishly sent their children to other lands to avoid the tyranny and oppression of Hitler. Whiteman's writing style is comfortable and easy to read. She uses many quotations from the respondents. Her awareness of their plight is clear in her translations of their answers. Without question, The uprooted: A Hitler legacy makes an important point about human resiliency. The citation of the various stories serves as tribute to the survivors and their kin who perished. Although the text is noteworthy, it is difficult to conceive of it as an assistance or teaching tool for the trauma therapist. Clients mired in their own pain look for work that speaks in their voice—fear, anger, emptiness, and hopelessness. They seek treatment, at times, believing that nothing can help them escape their wounds yet knowing that without help the pain may destroy their will to survive. This book describes courage and triumph yet quiets the inner thoughts and feelings of the survivor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Between father and child: How to become the kind of father you want to be.

Reviews the book, Between father and child: How to become the kind of father you want to be by R. Levant and J. Kelly (1989). This book is one of the most recent books on parenting that focuses on the father's unique relationship with his son and/or daughter. It is the result of the Boston University Fatherhood Project, a skills training and group interaction/discussion support group for fathers. Written for fathers (and according to the authors, for mothers as well), it is a nontechnical, readable approach to improving communications and relationships between fathers and their children. It is an outstanding contribution to the growing list of volumes dedicated to parenting 'in the next century,' and contributes a sensitive, practical approach to relationship enhancement as well as directly confronting such issues as sexism, male socialization processes and gender role strain and conflict issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cognitive-behavioral treatment of irritable bowel syndrome: The brain-gut connection.

Reviews the book, Cognitive-behavioral treatment of irritable bowel syndrome: The brain-gut connection by Brenda B. Toner, Zindel V. Segal, Shelagh D. Emmott, and David Myran (see record 1999-04420-000). This treatment manual represents a significant step forward in improving the biopsychosocial understanding and level of care available to patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Couched in cognitive-behavioural terms, the book identifies the pathogenic schema or "toxic" thoughts that characterize individuals prone to IBS symptoms. The goal of treatment is to shift the patient from a medical view that the IBS condition is largely outside the person's control to a view that the symptoms are under significant patient control. The book, part of the publisher's series of treatment manuals for practitioners, follows an accepted format with respect to cognitive techniques and interventions (collaborative empiricism, use of questions, present focus, self-help assignments, automatic thoughts). Practitioners who are not familiar with the rationale and techniques of cognitive behaviour therapy will appreciate the detail, which is provided for implementing their program. The book would have been strengthened by a discussion of medication, especially analgesic and bowel medications that might be having positive and negative effects on the IBS condition. By remaining loyal to the cognitive behavioural framework, the authors may have missed an important dimension of biopsychosocial patient care. Also, more attention to the sensory aspects of IBS symptoms (e.g., uncontrollable urges) would have strengthened the intervention. Still, this remains an excellent book and is highly recommended to all health professionals who work with patients with gastrointestinal symptoms and chronic illness conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The foundations of statistics.

Reviews the book, The foundations of statistics by Leonard J. Savage (see record 1955-00117-000). After a brief introductory chapter which notes three major points of view about the interpretation of probability (objectivistic, personalistic, and necessary), a personalistic or subjectivistic theory of decision in the face of uncertainty is developed in formal manner involving an assortment of definitions, postulates, theorems, lemmas, and corollaries. The theory is shown to imply the construct of utility in economic behavior. The second half of the book is devoted to the impact of personalistic probability on minimax theory, the theory of games, point estimation, interval estimation, and the testing of statistical hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The justice motive in social behavior.

Reviews the book, The Justice Motive in Social Behavior, edited by Melvin J. Lerner and Sally C. Lerner (1981). This edited book is the result of a conference held at the University of Waterloo. Here (September 1978) an interdisciplinary group of experts sought answers to the question, "How can the human concern with justice provide opportunities for constructive responses to future social dilemmas which may involve scarcity of resources and rapid change?" The 20 chapters are directly or indirectly related to this question, and the book is extremely timely and thought-provoking. This is an important book and should be a welcome addition to anyone interested in the implications for justice in the not-too-distant scarcity-laden future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The process and effects of mass communication.

Reviews the book "The process and effects of mass communication" edited by Wilbur Schramm (see record 1955-03971-000). This is the third collection of readings in mass communications research edited by Professor Schramm and published by the University of Illinois Press. Unlike its predecessors (Communications in Modern Society, 1948, and Mass Communications, 1949), this volume is strongly oriented toward international mass communication. As a background volume or supplementary text this is a useful book. Many of the items have not been reprinted previously in the sizable collection of readers now available in this field. The selections are apt in view of the editor's intent and are particularly well chosen in the final section on problems of achieving an effect with international communication. The reviewer noted most favorably that one of the book's important papers--the Davison-George item--was reworked by the authors for this volume. Such a procedure, more generally applied in collections of readings, would update and doubtless improve certain "classic" papers whose value may be diminished by obsolescence of data, by new insights or integrations, or by significant changes in the field which the item covers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Experimental Psychology of Sensory Behaviour.

Reviews the book, The Experimental Psychology of Sensory Behaviour by John F. Corso. The evaluation of John Corso's book depends to a great extent upon the use for which it is intended. As a text for an experimental psychology course, this book unfortunately has some serious limitations. This is of considerable value for some types of courses; however, for a course in experimental psychology it would seem desirable to give students a broader range of methodologies than those used in sensory psychology. This is a good, but somewhat limited, experimental psychology text that would need considerable supplementation from other sources in order to be adequate for general experimental courses in psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The covert conditioning handbook.

Reviews the book, The covert conditioning handbook by Joseph R. Cautela and Albert J. Kearney. Covert conditioning procedures were first developed by Joseph Cautela in the late 1960s. Now twenty years later, Cautela and coauthor Kearney have systematically organized the experimental and clinical literature on covert conditioning to provide an extensive review of its uses and effectiveness. The book includes explanations of the two most widely utilized covert conditioning procedures--covert positive reinforcement and covert sensitization--as well as the lesser known ones such as covert extinction, covert modeling, covert negative reinforcement, and covert response cost. In textbook format, the learning theory basis for each procedure is given, the clinical application is detailed, and relevant research findings are discussed. The second part of the book describes the use of covert conditioning procedures with different problem behaviors by providing case examples and by reviewing empirical evidence and case reports. The book is ideal for the beginning behavior therapist since the procedures are outlined clearly and with considerable detail. Drawing on their vast clinical experience with the methods, the authors discuss problems using the imagery-based techniques and the steps to ameliorate them. More experienced behavior therapists, while finding much of the material elementary, will glean some useful clinical tips and discover some innovative and more effective ways of using covert methods. Researchers will appreciate the careful analyses of 13 selected studies on covert conditioning, as well as the useful guidelines for interpreting and conducting research. A helpful feature of the book is an extensive bibliography (442 references) with a topical index that can be used to locate references on a particular procedure, target behavior, or type of article (case study, experimental, or theoretical). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)