When Critical Issues in Psychiatry was conceived, there were several sub- jects I considered to be of crucial importance in a series devoted to residents and clinicians in psychiatry, as well as to other mental health professionals. Of prominence was the pressing need for an in-depth and scholarly exam- ination of the interface between medicine and psychiatry. I had been amazed to find that not a single book, to my mind, adequately addressed the psy- chological symptoms and manifestations of both common and rare medical illness. It seemed to me that there was a need for a work which would...

This book is welcomed to the series as a truly unique contribution to the literature on marital therapy. It is written for the empirically oriented psychotherapist, regardless of his or her discipline, who encounters patients with marital discord and has been distressed by the absence of an acceptable conceptual model for treatment. Psychoanalysis, behavior therapy, general system theory, and social learning theory have all made important contributions to treatment. But all too often these approaches have focused either on individual psychopathology or on the formal elements of marital...

Despite much progress in the past ten years, American medical schools have woefully inadequate sex education curricula. While some have a reasonable amount of lecture time, few have clinical opportunities for students to develop practical skills in working with patients who are struggling with sexual problems. It is my impression that the same is true in medical and gynecological residencies, as well as in graduate schools of psychology, counseling and social work. This book was specifically written to help fill that gap. This is a book for clinicians, and it will provide a wealth of...

Memory is essential for the retention of learning. In the presence of memory deficits, new learning is impaired and performance of previously learned habits deteriorates. What is the nature of memory? Where does it reside in the brain? What biological events are associated with the formation and retrieval of memory? These questions are explored in the first chapter of this volume. The answers are not final, but we have learned a great deal about memory processes during the past few decades. Memory is influenced by most of the pathological processes that influ ence the brain such as infection,...

I have often stated to students that I felt that one of the most important characteristics of a psychotherapist is the ability to tolerate ambiguity. As Allen so aptly points out in this creative and valuable book, my observa tion contains an implicit assumption that requires a clear statement in order for it to be understood. Before ambiguity can be tolerated, it must be recognized. The psychotherapist who accepts the presentations of the pa tient at face value is never faced with the difficult problem of tolerating the ambiguity that is so intrinsic to the circumstances that bring many...

The family, that most fundamentalof human groups, is currently perceived to be changing in response to social, biological, cultural and technological developments in our postmodernsociety. While the observed changes in families have been considered by some sociologists to be evidence of adaptation and, therefore, normal, the authors of this volume, consider them maladaptive. Viewing society from the point of view of clinical psychiatry, they point to greatly increased numbers of children born to single mothers, soaring rates of divorce, a statistically confirmed increase in mental disorders,...

The psychiatric view of homosexuality has undergone a fascinating evo- lution in recent years. This includes not only the change from viewing homosexuality as a diagnosable illness, as opposed to an alternative life style, but also the development of considerable professional concern for providing appropriate mental health services to this previously under- served minority community. There has been an increasing recognition of the need for comprehensive services including, but not limited to, counseling, individual psychotherapy, and couples therapy. This book is written for the practicing...

This] volume provides a unique and advantageous perspective to the trainees and practitioners in the adolescent substance abuse field. It offers a sophisticated perspective on addiction treatment techniques developed in recent years, with a sensitivity to the social and developmental needs of the adolescent.'
Marc Galanter, from the Foreword.

If ever a book could be called timely, this is it. Sleep disorders medicine has made rapid advances in recent years. The field has attained growing respectability, with a textbook recently published, a congressionally man- dated National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, and a growing public awareness of the importance of sleep disorders. However, this rapid growth has made the discrepancy among certain components of the field all the more obvious. Thus, we find that patients who complain of insom- nia are almost never in the majority of those seen in sleep disorders centers, in spite...

Developmental theory is the essence of any psychodynamic psychother- apy, and certainly of psychoanalysis. It is through an understanding of progressive life events, and the way these events relate to associated biological and social events, that we come to understand both psycho- pathology and psychological strengths. For a long time we have needed a clinically oriented book that surveys normal development in both childhood and adulthood. This book should be particularly helpful to all mental health professionals whose daily work requires a constant awareness and appraisal of devel- opmental...