Abstract

157pp. $15, Lexington Books, D C Heath & Co, Lexington, Mass, 1978.U Directly on the heels of his bookThe Harassed Worker, by now aclassic in the field of social psychia try, Dr. Brodsky has followed with another important report. Hismonograph, The RehabilitationEnvironment, continues his critical appraisal ofpopulations whose fateis in jeopardy. n his previous I volume, he applied psychological and psychiatric considerations to work ing people who for one reason or another have to interrupt gainful employment, yet who, in the ma jority of instances, can expect to be reintegrated into a productive mode of earning a living. In the present treatise, Dr. Brodsky is concerned with another aspect of long-term psychosomatic care. Together with his collabora tor, Dr. Robert T. Platt, he de scribes the setting, the organiza tion, and the interpersonal rela tionships of a unit designed to serve victims of medical catastrophies, be these the results of injuries or the residuals of incapacitating medical illness. Based on their observations as psychiatric consultants to a rehab ilitation ward, the authors analyze the establishment, the expectations, and the rise and the fall of a highly specialized 13-bed ward designed to provide comprehensive physical rehabilitation services within the