Review of Detecting malingering and deception: Forensic distortion analysis.

Reviews the book, Detecting malingering and deception: Forensic distortion analysis by Harold V. Hall and Joseph G. Poirer (see record 2001-18575-000). Therapists who often see clients presenting with posttraumatic stress disorder, memory difficulties, substance abuse questions, and potential-for-harm (to self or others) problems can benefit from this text. It is interesting, given their orientation to the field of malingering and deception, that the authors do not dwell specifically on the issues of treatment as such. Instead, they address the concerns of therapists genetically at first, remarking on the assumptions often made about clients by clinicians, and then more specifically, in the context of various forensic topics. Hall and Poirier unfold their approach without rancor toward other clinicians or toward clients, and they do much to rectify the stuffy, over litigious image of forensic psychology in their humane and sensible stance. They do a marked service by reassuring therapists generally that forensic science need not mean decimation of the patient or the therapeutic relationship; in the process of seeking the truth, forensic specialists do not have to abandon decency. The reviewer recommends this carefully written and thorough text to all therapists who may themselves be drawn, or see clients who may be drawn, into the forensic arena. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of pain assessment, second edition.

Reviews the book, Handbook of pain assessment, second edition edited by Dennis C. Turk and Ronald Melzack (see record 2001-05101-000). This book is a comprehensive review of the state of the art of pain assessment. The book consists of 36 chapters organized in six major sections, an introduction and a conclusion. The sections are: measurement of pain, assessment of behavioural expressions of pain, medical and physical evaluations, psychological evaluation, specified pain states, and methodological issues. The Handbook of pain assessment should be in every university and health centre library. All health professionals and students who see patients who have pain (and that is probably all of them) should have this text readily available. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical Assessment before Trial.

Reviews the book, Clinical Assessment before Trial by C. D. Webster, R. J. Menzies, and M. A. Jackson (1982). The stated scope and purpose of this text are most ambitious. Webster, Menzies, and Jackson propose to answer seven or eight major questions for three specific purposes. They hope to encourage a compassionate interest in the mentally disordered offender, provide an academic study of the actions of clinicians, and give a sociological perspective on the interconnection of medicine and law. They have obviously given considerable thought of how the format of the book might assist in accomplishing their goals. They offer chapters addressed to the questions they ask and provide a walk-through of the issues using two hypothetical cases as examples. It is worth pointing out that the authors provide excellent references to Canadian forensic agencies and some corresponding data about these services. The bibliography is also very useful for Canadian students (and practitioners) who wish access to more detailed material than the text is able to provide. On the whole, the reader is provided with a reasonable academic introduction to clinical assessment before trial. The book fails to the extent that the authors appear to have gambled about how to use the space provided. In the end, the book has a resulting weakness. The main section does not have the space needed to become a major text. And yet the one-third of the book that is Appendices could just as well have been published in a regular journal. Better judgment would have provided the authors with more room to address the many important points dealt with in the main section fully. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical management of memory problems.

Reviews the book, Clinical management of memory problems by Barbara A. Wilson and Nick Moffat (1984). This short and serviceable volume amalgamates a series of papers presented at the University of Nottingham, England, in 1982. Its editors have brought together contributors from both academic and clinical settings in an attempt to bridge current theoretical models of human memory with practical approaches to memory assessment and its remediation. This book offers sound guidelines for anyone working with clients who present with memory deficits secondary to cortical dysfunction. Its brevity, easy reading style, and practical approach make it a useful reference for students and clinicians alike. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Treatment of childhood disorders, 3rd edition.

Reviews the book, Treatment of childhood disorders, 3rd edition edited by Eric J. Mash and Russell A. Barkley (see record 2006-05090-000). This is an impressive compilation of chapters by distinguished authors in their respective fields, covering the major domains related to common childhood psychopathology, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder, fear and anxiety, depression, mental retardation, autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, physical abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, substance use, and eating disorders. This landmark book, now in its third edition, provides the current state of knowledge about treatment intervention within these domains. This pioneering book continues to represent a major (and highly successful) undertaking to synthesize the wide literature base of treatment for common childhood disorders. Its ability to parsimoniously convey extensive information in a manner that is easily accessible to readers facilitates the advancement of treatment for childhood psychopathology by transferring treatment knowledge from the research laboratory to the clinical office. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical hypnosis with children.

Reviews the book, Clinical hypnosis with children by William C. Wester II and Donald J. O'Grady (see record 1991-97780-000). This edited volume by Wester and O'Grady contributes to the field by gathering a well-known group of experts to summarize briefly the application of hypnosis for various types of childhood problems. The book's goals include coverage of the variety of uses of hypnosis and hypnotherapy with children. In addition, the editors want to provide various and sometimes divergent views of hypnotherapy with children. To this end, the editors generally accomplish their goals. The range of topics covered is quite broad, and the contributors include both psychologists and physicians who use hypnosis in their clinical practices. As with many edited books the content and quality varies, but I found the book to be of generally high quality. The writing styles are diverse, yet most of the chapters are clear, concise, and highly readable. While there is no single theoretical position for the chapters, the theoretical orientation of the book is broadly psychodynamic, empirical, and cognitive. The underlying perspective on hypnosis is from a more traditional and empirical view, rather than the Ericksonian perspective. This book is written for professional psychotherapists, e.g., psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, with basic to intermediate knowledge of hypnosis. A person with background in working with adults would find this book a good introduction to working with children. Overall, the editors have done a nice job of assembling a coherent group of papers that provides the reader with an overview of the application of hypnosis with children. I recommend this book to psychotherapists interested in working with children, and it makes a useful contribution to the growing literature on hypnotherapy with children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical neuropsychology of intervention.

Reviews the book, Clinical neuropsycbology of intervention by Barbara Uzzell and Yigal Gross. Doctors Uzzell and Gross have performed a great service for the field of Neuropsychology by editing the volume which they entitle Clinical Neuropsychology of Intervention. They have succeeded in making the book a depiction of the state of the art of neuropsychological rehabilitation in 1986. The contributions, of uniformly high quality, are by individuals who are experienced in service delivery to the brain injured. The contributions reflect both an underlying concern with psychological theory and with principles of neuropsychology and reflect an effort by each author to analyze and codify his/her own experience so as to present it systematically to the reader. These efforts are all successful—some to such a degree that those chapters constitute superb, self-contained treatments of their topics. Surely, this coherence of approach and the high quality of the result have to reflect the skillful editing by Doctors Uzzell and Gross. The reviewer recommends this book as obligatory reading for anyone involved in the evaluation or treatment of brain damaged patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical management of substance abuse programs.

Reviews the book, Clinical management of substance abuse programs by Robert J. Craig (see record 1987-97819-000). Clinical management of substance abuse programs is a significant contribution to substance abuse program management. The author provides the program director with specific information about increasing program effectiveness. His thesis is that broad program activities have greater impact on total patient care than does any individual activity with a particular patient. The book is divided into three parts. Part I is devoted to the following sections: (a) an introduction and review of the book's contents, (b) diagnostic interviewing, and (c) psychological testing. The three chapters in Part II review general models of treatment, including multimodal, combined alcohol and drug, and treatment matching. Part III, which contains four chapters, details clinical program management activities. In this section the author offers the nuts and bolts for designing a substance abuse program based on effective evaluation and quality control. The author is successful in providing a basic text to assist clinician/managers in designing more effective treatment programs for substance abusers. I recommend this book to any professional responsible for program development in substance abuse treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical guidelines in cross-cultural mental health.

Reviews the book, Clinical guidelines in cross-cultural mental health edited by Lillian Comas-Diaz and Ezra E. H. Griffith (see record 1988-97772-000). This volume represents the latest work on psychotherapy with ethnic/racial minority populations, and was intended for mental health practitioners as well as academicians. The book is divided into three parts. The first section has six chapters addressing the role of "ethnosociocultural" factors such as ethnicity, family values, language, religion, politics, and race in the cross-cultural delivery of psychotherapeutic care. The second section focuses on clinical practice with specific ethnic/racial groups including Afro-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Southeast Asian refugees, and West Indians. A final section of one chapter by Comas-Diaz discusses the "state of the art" in cross-cultural mental health. Three factors set this book apart from previous ones on this topic: 1) devotion of an entire section to core ethnosociocultural factors; 2) use of case vignettes to illustrate important cross-cultural issues in mental health; and 3) provision of specific recommendations for the practitioner. Unfortunately, the effort falls short due to the strong academic approach to clinical issues evident throughout the book. Moreover, there was substantial variability in contributors' use of case material and provision of specific recommendations. This uneven coverage, one of the prime drawbacks of many edited volumes, may limit its appeal to practitioners. This book is an improvement over previous texts in this area, but it is by no means a clinician's guide to cross-cultural mental health because of the pervasive academic influence throughout. Consequently, there is an imbalance in favor of didactic over pragmatic approaches to cross-cultural mental health. Thus this book seems more suitable for clinicians in training than for clinicians in practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical applications of the Adult Attachment Interview.

Reviews the book, Clinical applications of the Adult Attachment Interview edited by Howard Steele and Miriam Steele (see record 2008-04549-000). Although the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), created by Mary Main and her colleagues, is among the most important research instruments in developmental and clinical psychology, the details of its administration and scoring are known only to certified coders and examples of its clinical utility are, for the everyday clinician, difficult to find. This edited volume draws the curtain far enough to reveal the major inner-workings of the interview and throws light on the penetrating ways it can inform any psychotherapy. The editors, Howard and Miriam Steele, themselves clinically minded attachment researchers and well versed in the AAI and its sister interviews, have done a remarkable job of recruiting clinicians and clinician-researchers who more than make good on the promise of the volume’s title. This volume is best suited to those already acquainted with attachment theory and the major findings of attachment research. It will help clinical graduate students tune their ears to attachment-informed ways of listening and thinking, help established clinicians attend to the nuances of linguistic structure to inform clinical understanding and intervention, and inspire researchers new to interview-based methods of investigation. Readers will not find, and the editors did not intend to include, debates on the merits of the interview’s complexity or a discussion of the much needed rapprochement between researchers who favor the AAI and researchers who rely on paper-and-pencil inventories of attachment security. The Steeles fill an critical gap in the clinical literature on attachment; outside of single chapters that give high quality but necessarily brief overviews of the AAI (e.g., Hesse, 2008; Levy & Kelly, 2009), I am not aware of another book that offers as unobstructed a view of how the AAI is conducted and coded or of the many ways the interview can be used as a clinical tool. Outside the expensive, labor-intensive AAI trainings given around the world, this volume may be as close as many of us will get to the means to appreciate, learn, and use the AAI in practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A history of psychology: Original sources and contemporary research, 3rd edition.

Reviews the book, A history of psychology: Original sources and contemporary research, 3rd edition by Ludy T. Benjamin Jr. (see record 2008-08540-000). This book joins recent scholarship in the history of psychology with an assortment of classic articles and texts in the field. Published primarily as a reader or companion text, it offers a collection of 44 articles, 20 of which are primary source material; the remainder are more recent secondary sources from well-established authors in the area. In this third edition, Benjamin has made some editorial changes from previous versions of this popular text. For example, the number of chapters has been reduced from 16 to 11 in order to make it a more suitable companion to a traditional textbook on the history of psychology. While there are some wonderful articles here, the reviewer notes a general lack of critical perspective in both Benjamin’s narratives and his choice of secondary sources which prevents him from giving this review the glow that one would normally associate with such esteemed authors and scholarship. His main concerns are that, first, the epistemic and ontological perspectives offered are largely those of professional psychologists rather than those of historians, reflecting a field where researchers already struggle with the notions of interpretation and context, all set within a self-imposed framework of empirical science and objectivity. Second, as a result of this, the future of the history of psychology course is in peril because of its own popularity as a capstone course, where it seems to serve, by and large, the ceremonial and disciplinary function of codifying psychology’s scientific identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Exploring research, seventh edition.

Reviews the book, Exploring research, seventh edition by Neil J. Salkind (2009). This is the seventh edition of an introductory text on research methods. It is intended for “upper-level undergraduate students and graduate students in their first research methods course in the social, behavioural, and health sciences fields” (p. xvii). The intention of the book is to introduce the important topics in research methods in a “nonintimidating and informative way” (p. xvii). Changes in this edition include a new chapter on ethics, with more material on ethical issues when doing online research, the use of children as participants, and updated general ethical guidelines; updated and new coverage of software for dealing with both qualitative data and for bibliographies; updated information on the use of the Internet for research and for conducting research and literature reviews online; as well as changes to the questions and exercises at the end of the chapters and to the Web site that accompanies the book. The Web site also contains an appendix with an introduction to SPSS 16 (which was not available at the time of this review). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Outcomes assessment in clinical practice.

Reviews the book, Outcomes assessment in clinical practice edited by Lloyd I. Sederer and Barbara Dickey. This book is a timely publication dealing with the urgent and imperative situation in health care delivery, especially in the area of mental health services. There are four Sections in the book. Section I is titled Integrating Outcomes Assessment into Clinical Practice. This section conveys in a rational and reasonable sequence the definition, impetus, history, scope, process, and current crisis-like status of mental health care, in terms of its financing, its validity, and its effectiveness. Section II is called Instruments of Outcomes Assessment and contains sixteen chapters, each describing a different instrument of assessment. Section III optimistically proclaimed a future improvement of health care delivery and access. These five chapters were exciting, but require a most open and direct acknowledgement of the need for protection of patients and therapists in this field. Complementing Section II is Section IV which contains the Appendices. According to the reviewer, this book has the potential to advance the practice of psychotherapy. But presenting it as a means to satisfy so many volatile and uncontrolled social, political, economic, and other forces can lead to its corruption. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical values: Emotions that guide psychoanalytic treatment.

Reviews the book Clinical Values: Emotions That Guide Psychoanalytic Treatment (2004), by Sandra Buechler. Buechler, a training and supervising analyst at the William Alanson White Institute, sets out to elucidate a number of seldom spoken-about tasks of the analyst in this thoughtful and often inspiring book. Drawing on 20 years of experience as an analyst, she sheds an intimate light on the analyst's struggle against loneliness, burnout, anxiety, and outright feelings of fear and intimidation as well as on the need to remain inquisitive, interested, and purposeful. In the first chapter of her book, Buechler directly and indirectly raises some of the questions that have concerned psychoanalysis for the last 20 years. She ponders, for instance, whether there are such things as truth and reality that exist a priori and independently of what the analyst and patient "cocreate" in the consulting room. Is the analyst's knowledge an illusion that is detrimental to the goal of fostering curiosity in treatment? What is the role of theory in treatment? Buechler manages to pose these controversial questions in such a way that one can easily lose sight of what is indeed so controversial about them. This is mainly because these issues are discussed as subheadings to her stated central focus--a set of clinical values that guide or ought to guide the analyst's work. However, Buechler's recommendations for addressing these inherent challenges become a polemical and, to my mind, an equally, if not more, interesting subject of discussion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical neurology of aging.

Reviews the book, Clinical neurology of aging, edited by Martin L. Albert (1984). This book covers the "neurology" of aging in the broadest sense of the term. The 27 chapters, written by recognized authorities in their specialties, deal with the organic bases of aging (neuroanatomy, neuropathology, neurochemistry, and neuroimmunology); the clinical neurological evaluation and the application of neurodiagnostic techniques (electroencephalography, computerized axial tomography, evoked potentials, cerebral blood flow); the neuropsychological, sensory, and motor changes associated with aging; psychiatric syndromes; rehabilitation procedures; and the most common neurological disorders encountered in the elderly patient. Both the practicing clinician and the researcher in the field of rehabilitation will find this volume to be a valuable reference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical Handbook of Psychotropic Drugs (13th ed.).

This annual publication (2003) updates readers about the major classes of psychotropic medications. It reviews some 14 groups of interventions: antidepressants, electroconvulsive therapy, antipsychotics (neuroleptics), antiparkinsonian agents, anxiolytic agents, hypnotics/sedatives, mood stabilizers, psychostimulants, cognition enhancers, sex-drive depressants, drugs of abuse, treatment of substance use disorders, new unapproved treatment of psychiatric disorders, and herbal and natural products. Following the body of the text, there appears a Glossary, Suggested Readings, an Index of Drugs, and some helpful Patient Information Sheets. Psychotherapists will find this a useful, and state-of-the-art text. Although the information provided can be obtained through a wide range of competing sources, it is the organization, formulation, and patient information features that make this text relatively unique. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychology: Theoretical-historical perspectives, second edition.

Reviews the book, Psychology: Theoretical-historical perspectives, second edition by Robert W. Rieber and Kurt D. Salzinger (see record 1998-06434-000). Like its predecessor, this second edition is a useful volume with a broad scope and any psychologist perusing even a portion of its 500 plus pages will likely come away convinced that there is more to history than a tedious collection of names and dates. As a pedagogical supplement and general introduction to the history of psychology field, this book succeeds admirably. However, in publishing a second edition, Rieber and Salzinger set themselves a more ambitious agenda. One of the goals of the book was to acknowledge the growth and vibrancy of recent scholarship in the history of psychology and to "present some synthesis within the confines of one book." Using these commendable goals as a metric, the book is somewhat disappointing. The book is too much like the first edition in both its choice of questions and authors. This sort of repetition is not a problem in and of itself; however the history of psychology has changed dramatically since the publication of the first edition 18 years ago. There is relatively little in the second edition to indicate that there have been any significant historiographic developments within the history of psychology field since the 1970s. By ignoring these changes, the book left me unable to answer a fundamental question that all second editions must face: Why is a new edition needed? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Abnormal psychology: Canadian edition.

Reviews the book, Abnormal psychology: Canadian edition by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema and Neil Rector (2008). The first Canadian and fourth overall edition of this course textbook gets an A-plus from this reviewer. Abnormal psychology is a huge, growing field. Presenting the field to readers in just 18 chapters in ways that spark both human and scientific interest is a major challenge that was successfully accomplished by Nolen-Hoeksema and Rector. The authors provide a wealth of state-of-the-art information in digestible bites in relatively few pages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)