Boon REVIEWS 1 5.;

and diseases of particular importance such as intracranial that the cover illustration whose significance is described

tumor and multiple sclerosis. It does not set out to cover in detail was not on the reviewers copy.

the subjects in depth, but within these limits it covers them well. More line drawings might have helped to break up some rather solid masses of text, and it is disappointing J. M. K. SPALDING

Cerebral Circulation and Metabolism, T. W. LANGFITT. L. C. MCHENRY, M. R~IVICH & H. WOLLMAN (Eds.) Springer. New York (1975). 530 pp., DM.188.20.

THIS book is full of valuable contributions on the expand- ing field of cerebral circulation and metabolism. It deals with auto-, chemical and neurogenic regulation of the cere- bral circulation, the effects of reduction in that circulation both focal, including strokes, and general; with the distur- bances due to raised intracranial pressure and with rela- tionship between blood flow and electrical activity. There

are substantial sections on methods for measuring cerebral blood flow. The book is excellently produced. It is the proceedings of an international symposium of June, 1973. It may be that those interested in the subject will already be familiar from publications elsewhere with the more im- portant contributions contained in this book and that it would have been better to publish the book more quickly if less elegantly while the news it contains was still fresh.

The innovative Psychological Therapies: Critical and Crea- tive Contributions, R. M. SUINN & R. G. WEIGEL (Eds.) Harper & Row, New York (1975).

THE TITLE of the book provides an accurate description of its contents-the editors have surveyed the immense literature in the field of psychotherapy (applying that term in the widest sense) and selected twenty-six previously pub- lished articles that they consider worthy of attention, either because of their innovative quality or because of their wide acceptance as key contributions.

The compilation is useful in demonstrating how diverse and multiple the options are for the contemporary psy- chotherapist, be he a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker or counsellor. The longstanding controversy of whether psychoanalytically-oriented therapy is more or less effective than behaviour therapy seems quite passe when the available choice covers a host of other thera- peutic approaches in addition e.g. gestalt, transactional analysis, focal psychotherapy, psychodrama, and an assort- ment of group psychotherapies.

The editors have selected readings which include some of these alternatives, categorizing them conveniently into: behaviour therapy, group procedures, the use of parapro- fessionals, and a rather vague group of ‘therapeutic pro- grammes’. Although I admired the editors’ effort of sifting through the vast literature, their final selection includes

some articles which, in my opinion. do not warrant a place in the book. Both nude marathons (which certainly created a stir when they were originally introduced) and saturation group psychotherapy (sixteen successive weekends of inten- sive group therapy), for instance, have rather limited appli- cation, and then probably only within the United States. Indeed, the overall selection has a parochially American flavour to it and would tend to be more useful to the psychotherapist working there, than professionals else- where. More generally, as one would expect in any compi- lation of readings from several sources, some are a lot better than others, either in terms of the research methodo- logy or the presentation.

Notwithstanding these comments, the book serves the function of drawing our attention to a variety of thera- peutic approaches, to which one would not otherwise have ready access. Particularly for the trainee mental health pro- fessional, an awareness that several diverse approaches to the practise of psychotherapy exist, is necessary, as he attempts to develop the style he will ultimately select as optimal in his own work.

A useful supplement to this book would be an annotated bibliography of the literature permitting a more compre- hensive coverage and a guide to further reading.

S. BLOCH

Opiate Receptor Mechanisms: Ne~oche~e~ and Neuro- physio~gi~l Processes in Opiate Drug Action and Addiction. (Based on a Work Session of the Neurosciences Research Program, S. II. SYNDER & S. MATTHYSSE, with H. AKIL, I. CREESE, P. A. MANSKY Jr G. W. PASTERNAK.) A. B. NASH L J. TAYLOR (NRP Writer-editors) MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1975). E4.95.

IN THE first two sentences of the blurb on the jacket of this book, we are told that “opium derivatives (including . . morphine and heroin) have been used for many cen- turies” and that this book is “an outgrowth of a meeting sponsored by MITs Neurosciences Research Program”, although we are not told that this meeting took place on

19-21 May 1974. The blurring of historical accuracy exhi- bited in both these sentences extends to the book itself, since the date of the meeting is omitted and the book appears to consist of reports of what each participant said, written and updated by the editors and a few participants. As an historical record, this book should therefore be treated with reserve. Its claim to our interest lies rather in its scientific content.

~ienti~~lly, the great interest of this book lies in the integrated account of recent developments in our know- ledge of the specific receptors, whereby the ‘morphine- sensitive neurone’ recognizes certain endogenous mes- senger substances and is deceived, as it were, into recogniz- ing also some exogenous molecules, such as morphine and naloxone, that mimic or antagonize these endogenous mes-