In the preface to their book the authors state, "The purpose of this book is to improve the practitioner's sense of security in dealing with emotional and psychologic manifestations overt and covert, while maintaining the integrity of his own particular interests." The book opens with a survey of human development stressing various problems that patients present physicians related to the issues of their particular age: ie, infancy, childhood, latency, adolescence, adulthood, and aging. The authors follow a similar format in chapters on surgical and medical practice discussing the emotional problems accruing from physical illness and the particular mode of treatment, surgical or medical. They conclude the first half of their book, which deals largely with psychiatric problems a practitioner will face, with a chapter surveying classic psychiatric disorders based on the International Classification of Diseases (eighth revision) 1968.
As one reads the book there is a growing feeling that a