This book attempts to evaluate the importance of psychological factors in the general practice of medicine. The contributors include psychiatrists, general practitioners, psychoanalysts, and statisticians, as well as representatives of other disciplines. The 23 articles in the volume are grouped into five major sections: "Identification and Patterns of Psychosocial Disorders," "Factors Affecting the Risk for Psychosocial Disorder," "Management of Psychosocial Disorder in General Practice," "The Outcome of Psychosocial Disorder in General Practice," and "Future Trends in Research Into Primary Care Psychiatry."
Unfortunately, the book does not entirely succeed in the aims implied by the title, but it is unlikely that one can accomplish an integrated presentation by selecting articles written by different authors, for different journals, for presumably different purposes. For example, some articles are technical reports of research, filled with tables of correlations and regression analyses, while others are the opinions of clinicians or biographical sketches. Apparently, 20 of