George A. Talland

Attention, Arousal and the Orientation Reaction (International Series of Monographs in Experimental Psychology, Vol. 3)

This work is a technical, research-oriented study of the process of psychotherapy, utilizing data and technology from psychological studies of behavior change. The main thesis of the book is that the goal of psychotherapy is essentially to change the patients behavior, and that the current practice of therapy is inefficient because it fails to fully utilize the most effective (in the laboratory) manipulative techniques. The authors feel that a more experimentally based rationale is needed for including or excluding any therapeutic activity, and they suggest a number of hypotheses drawn from studies in nonclinical areas of psychological research. For example, the concepts of therapeutic alliance, resistance, and capacity to utilize insight are examined by applying data from work done on cognitive dissonance, message structure, and learning theory. Both individual and group psychotherapy are included in this study and the work is carefully researched with extensive references in all areas. No attempt is made to evaluate these hypotheses through clinical application, but the numerous difficulties in psychotherapy research are explored in detail, and new approaches to methodology are suggested.

A Textbook of Psychology

opment of drugs to treat disorders of the mind renders this kind of compilation essential; it fills an acute need. There is a careful presentation of the chief properties of 26 drugs, which are listed alphabetically in the table of contents. Perhaps the authors might have presented their material in a different order in accordance with clinical usefulness of the various drugs. In that case, however, they would be introducing an element of controversy because of the recent development of this subject. HAROLD E. HIMWICH

Theories of Personality

This book is divided into four sections. The first section, in which there arc three articles, deals with the body, mind, and spirit. The second section, which also has three articles, deals with religion and psychiatry. The third section, on prayer, consists of three articles. The fourth section is about spiritual healing and has four articles. It is impossible because of space to discuss each article. All are stimulating and reveal new insights and attitudes toward what we might call a new discipline in which religion and psychiatry are combined.