Patrick J. Hopkinson

Book Reviews : QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS. AN EXPANDED SOURCEBOOK, 2nd EDITION Matthew B. Miles & Michael Huberman Sage Publications, 1994. Pp. 338, Pb. £19.95. ISBN 0-8039-5540-5

QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS. AN EXPANDED SOURCEBOOK, 2nd EDITION Matthew B. Miles & Michael Huberman Sage Publications, 1994. Pp. 338, Pb. £19.95. ISBN 0-8039-5540-5 I had the good fortune of using this book as my main source of reference for an ongoing qualitative research project. The authors declare that they ’do not consider it to be a comprehensive handbook’ and naturally, anyone planning on venturing into qualitative research for the first time would be advised to access as much of the corpus of literature on the subject as possible. Whilst the book’s coverage is usefully broad, key concepts and methods such as grounded theory are not explored in sufficicnt depth to be employed without further reference to more detailed and specific texts. This book’s principle strength lies, however, in it’s being an eminently practical source of ideas, tactics and advice as well as a sound and user-friendly introduction to qualitative research and analysis. I found the layout especially helpful; Miles and Huberman present each research and analysis method according to the stage at which it might be used in a study and introduce it with an example of the particular problems it can be used to solve. This assists in the discovery and application of new techniques considerably. Illustrative examples abound throughout and prove useful in demonstrating the power of fairly advanced data analysis and display methods. However, I found the major working example Miles and Huberman use, that of a study of the implementation of an ’innovation’ in a school setting, to be rather di#hcult to transpose to more usual psychological research topics. The writing style is informal and never dry, although it occasionally verges on the excessively ’wordy’. As a consequence, however, researchers trained in quantitative methods will hopefully find that gradually the theoretical stance of the qualitative approach is reinforced and becomes more persuasive and familiar. Highly recommended. Patrick J. Hopkinson Honorary Researcher, Institute of Psychiatry, London

Book Reviews : Introduction To Project Management in Health Research - a Guide To New Researchers Edited by Tim Usherwood Open University Press: Buckingham 1996. Pb. £12.99, Pp. 100. ISBN 9-780335-197071

common problems seen in child and adolescent clinical psychology. It is divided into 6 sections, covering: frameworks for practice (including a thorough discussion of normal development, as well as tips on how to write reports and communicate results of assessments to other professionals); problems seen in children of different ages (3 sections); child abuse; and adjustment to major life transitions. As a whole, the book takes a life-cycle perspective, and highlights throughout the importance of contextual, family and wider systemic variables. Each chapter contains a description of the problem, a summary of differential diagnostic issues, and guidelines for assessment and intervention. Frequent case examples bring the text to life. At the end of each chapter, exercises are presented to aid consolidation of skills. Lists of further reading for practitioners and clients are detailed and the whole text is well referenced.

Book Reviews : Genetic Studies in Affective Disorders: Edited by Demitri F. Papolos & Herbert M. Lachman The Einstein Psychiatry Series, Wiley Interscience, New York, 1994. Hb. Pp. 236. ISBN 0-471-0075-2

common problems seen in child and adolescent clinical psychology. It is divided into 6 sections, covering: frameworks for practice (including a thorough discussion of normal development, as well as tips on how to write reports and communicate results of assessments to other professionals); problems seen in children of different ages (3 sections); child abuse; and adjustment to major life transitions. As a whole, the book takes a life-cycle perspective, and highlights throughout the importance of contextual, family and wider systemic variables. Each chapter contains a description of the problem, a summary of differential diagnostic issues, and guidelines for assessment and intervention. Frequent case examples bring the text to life. At the end of each chapter, exercises are presented to aid consolidation of skills. Lists of further reading for practitioners and clients are detailed and the whole text is well referenced.

Book Reviews : MULTIAXIAL PRESENTATION OF THE ICD-10 FOR USE IN ADULT PSYCHIATRY World Health Association Cambridge University Press, 1997, Pp. 158, Hb. £35.00. ISDN 0-521-58502-3

WORKING WITH INVOLUNTARY CLIENTS: A GUIDE TO PRACTICE Edited by Chris Trotter Sage Publications, London, 1999, Pp. 163. ISBN 0 7619 6333 2 Social workers in Great Britain have been bombarded in the last few years with reports and enquiries about what has gone wrong. The recent publication from the Department of Health, &dquo;Child Protection Messages from Research&dquo; (HMSO, 1995), found that professionals should do more to engage with and work in partnership with their clients, but said little about how to achieve this. Writing in the Australian context, Chris Trotter addresses this issue and offers a

Book Reviews : CLINICAL HANDBOOK OF PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS. FOURTH REVISED EDITION Kalyna Z. Bezchlibnyk-Butler (Principal Editor) Hogrefe and Huber: Seattle 1994. Pp. 129, Pb. £29.50. ISBN 0-88937-115-6

commoner conditions to which students are more likely to be exposed are covered first. The chapters are well structured, maintaining a balance between remaining comprehensive and interesting. The addition of illustrative case histories is welcome. The text is topical, and highlights current controversies well. There are very few minor quibbles with the content e.g. the classification of autism as a psychosis. For many, student textbooks will be their only exposure to the psychiatric literature. Chapters on somatic presentations and management, liaison psychiatry, and community care are particularly strong. However more emphasis on practical issues such as cognitive assessment, suicide risk assessment, and when to refer for specialist help would have been useful. Overall though, this new edition continues to remain a highly recommended text in the

Book Reviews : SKILLS FOR EFFECTIVE HUMAN SERVICES MANAGEMENT Edited by Richard L. Edwards & John A. Yankey NASW Press 1991. Pp. 386, Pb. ISBN 0-8701-195-6

TALKING ABOUT PSYCHIATRY Edited by Greg Wilkinson Gaskell, 1993. Pp. 342, Pb. £20.00. ISBN 0-902241-56-7 This book is a fascinating account of the development of post-war psychiatry, seen through the eyes of 19 individuals. The contributors form a veritable Who’s Who of British psychiatry. While there have been other books of this genre (see for instance David Cohen’s, &dquo;Psychologists on Psychology&dquo;, Routledge, 1977), 1 found this particular volume much more appealing. Initially, I was drawn to reading about those psychiatrists who had an obvious association with the Maudsley, so I started with the accounts by Eliot Slater, Felix Post, Michael Shepherd and Robert Cawley. However I was to discover that virtually all of the contributors had spent at least some time in their careers at the Maudsley, with the exception of Jose Jancar. Behind the scenes the figure of Sir Aubrey Lewis was the clearly dominant force. It was equally intriguing to learn about the background and careers of distinguished professors such as Max Hamilton, Kenneth Rawnsley, Tom Lynch, Hugh Freeman and Sir William Trethowan. While this book will appeal most to psychiatrists, other mental health professionals will be interested to read the interviews with such standard bearers as Maxwell Jones and David Clark. Although several influential psychiatrists are missing from this list, there should be no shortage of material for subsequent editors. Compulsive reading! Jerome Carson

Book Reviews : THE POLITICS OF MENTAL HEALTH IN ITALY Michael Donnelly Routledge: London, 1992. Pp. i-xvi+151 Hb. £35.00. ISBN 0-415-06176-8:

Michael Donnelly Routledge: London, 1992. Pp. i-xvi+151 Hb. £35.00. ISBN 0-415-06176-8 This is an incisive investigation into the background and consequences of the (in)famous 1978 Italian Law 180 which, &dquo;effectively [closed] mental health hospitals throughout the country.&dquo; What makes this law all the more remarkable is that, as Donnelly demonstrates, the concept of community care was slower to develop in Italy than in the USA, Britain or France. Italian psychiatry became closely allied with the state soon after national unification, assuming a social control role by detaining in asylums those whose behaviour (caused by their mental illness) presented a danger to society. This was combined with a radically organicist perspective which largely excluded all but strictly biological explanations for the causes of these behaviours. However, in the 1960s an equally radical and politically motivated &dquo;democratic psychiatry&dquo; began to take shape. This challenged the asylum system yet differed from the anti-psychiatry prevalent elsewhere in Europe and the USA: the existence of mental health problems was never doubted, although their biological causation was. Instead, the focus was on the harmful effects that stigmatisation and exclusion from society had upon mental patients. The aim

Book Review: CLINICAL EVALUATION OF PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS FOR PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS-PRINCIPLES AND PROPOSED GUIDELINES P. Grof, M.I. Akhter, M. Campbell, C.G. Gottfries, I. Khan, Y. Lapiere, L. Lemberger, B. Muller-Oerlinghausen & B. Woggon

excellent chapters on both the cholinergic deficits in dementia and their treatment, including a useful summary of the methodological problems in drug trials. In addition, there is a very useful summary of the drug treatments for behavioural disturbances and psychotic symptoms in dementia. These chapters highlight the relatively modest benefits of drug treatment and the need for properly conducted drug trials for both the cognitive and non-cognitive problems occurring in the context of dementia. Attempts to clarify the aetiology and pathogenesis of the dementias should lead to more logical approaches to drug treatment. Although this book clearly emphasises the biological aspects of dementia there is an attempt to redress the balance. There is a chapter on psychological treatments for dementia focusing mainly on therapies typically carried out in formal care settings such as reality orientation, validation therapy and reminiscence therapy. The majority of dementia sufferers are cared for in the community by their families and the inclusion of a chapter devoted to management of the family looking at problems and interventions at different stages in the disease process, is therefore highly appropriate. However, a chapter summarising the considerable literature on carers and the correlates of the stresses and strains they experience is surprisingly absent from this book. In addition, a chapter on the medicolegal aspects of the management of dementia has not been included. With the increasing elderly populations across different cultures, many countries have begun to develop specialist old age psychiatry services to meet the needs of this group. There are very useful chapters on old age psychiatry services in different continents including a lucid account of the development of services in the UK. These chapters highlight the historical development of services, principles of service provision, differences in models of care across cultures and the challenges ahead, particularly with regard to the projected increases in the &dquo;old elderly&dquo; with their higher rates of psychiatric morbidity. The final section is extensive and deals with non-Alzheimer dementia including dementia in vascular disease, dementia in psychiatric syndromes, dementia in neurological disorders and recently described forms of dementia. There are very lucid accounts of contemporary thinking on cognitive impairment in depression, alcohol dependence and late onset para-phrenia and a very useful account of the relatively recent described frontal lobe dementia.

Book Reviews : THE COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA Christopher D. Frith

valuable consequences for science provided the factual evidence leading to the theories is not corrupted. This is why distortion of professedly factual results is &dquo;rightly regarded as an unforgivable professional crime&dquo;. Chapters on specific individuals: John Darsee, Elias Alsabti and Sir Cyril Burt are fascinating, but the deeper motivations of these mysterious charlatans elude analysis. Many of the fraudsters appear to have been bright and talented individuals, already well launched on successful careers. One contributor comments that research

Book Reviews : SCHIZOPHRENIA. A DISEASE OR SOME WAYS OF BEING HUMAN F.A. Jenner, Antonio C.D. Monterio, J.A. Zagalo-Cardoso & J.A. Cunha-Oliveria Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. Pp. 164, Hb £30.00. ISBN 1-8507-5401-2

Causation’, ’Social Consequences’ and ’Principles of Management’, is not wholly successful. Given the expertise of the editors the lack of emphasis on cultural factors in mental disorder will be somewhat disappointing to readers of this Journal. Failure to provide a chapter on the relevance of social anthroplogy to social psychiatry (or to discuss the ’new transcultural psychiatry’) was a major surprise. A number of important methodological issues were either not explored or are skated over: for example the very complex issue of quality of life receives brief mention in the chapters describing a study of hospital closure and health economics. Despite these reservations this book represents an interesting and informative summary of the field. It is a must for any psychiatric library. A paperback edition would have wide appeal. This reviewer looks forward to a second edition that was more ruthlessly edited to exclude material that is of largely local interest and emphasises the very challenging basic methodological issues of social psychiatry. Dr Frank Holloway Editor, International Journal of Social Psychiatry