Mental Abnormality and the Law
Abstract
517 who are tryingdistortions, deceptions. andwell-meant,SHEELEY,M.D.,so.F.Yet, perhaps these apprehensions of author critic are not always justified. One does not usually enter a complex field of knowledge and skill such as psychiatry by first reading that fieldâs most complex works on the subject. The neophyte must first have a broad view of the field ; he must be given a few broad assumptions to cling to as he prepares to cope with controversy and fragmented knowledge. The physician who is new to psychiatry needs some general orientation and guidance; he needs to be told what therapy he dare not do, but also that which he can safely undertake. As he begins to apply in his daily practice principles which his teachers have stated too broadly to fit adequately every patient he treats, he will turn to his own ingenuity and to the counsel of the psychiatrists whom he trusts for appropriate modifications, adaptations, purifications, and sophistications of those principles.Washington,MENTAL ABNORMALITYD. C.H. Jenner Wily, and (Christchurch, New Peryer, 1962, pp. 543.) InK. R. Zealand:LAW. By Stallworthy. N. M.Handbook of Psychiatric Treatment in Medical Practice is such an introduction. It does not ask the physician to come to it, but rather