Those physicians engaged in primary care are daily confronted with patients who have emotional and mental disorders or exaggerated responses to disease. A book that provides primary care physicians with practical approaches to treating these difficult patients and to clarifying the role the primary care physician can or should assume with these patients, would be an indispensable addition to the physician's library. Dr Lurie should be congratulated for attempting to provide nonpsychiatrists with such a book. Unfortunately, his monograph falls short of providing primary care physicians with an indispensable reference.
Dr Lurie ambitiously addresses the topics of normal psychological development from childhood to old age, commonly encountered "problem" patients (eg, the hostile patient), common psychoses and affective disorders, crisis intervention, behavior modification, alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder, dying patients, counseling, and even effective office interior decorating. He directs his writing specifically to the outpatient practice of private practitioners of primary care