Unfortunately, in many medical schools, psychiatry has been taught largely from a psychoanalytic approach —and the recent advances in psychiatric therapy, as well as the implications of these advances in terms of etiological mechanisms, have been superficially presented.
Cammer has provided an excellent and thoroughly eclectic review of the forces which operate to produce psychiatric illness. He is erudite in his exposition and draws his material from many sources ranging from Hans Selye to Walter Cannon, from Sigmund Freud to Karen Homey. He discusses man's total functioning, outlining the role of stress in its various forms; growth and development from a psychodynamic point of view; personality structure as a biological concept including the role of conflict; and "active will." He evaluates the neurophysiological basis of behavior, conditioned (Pavlovian) behavior, and cerebral integration. There is a clear and lucid discussion of psychoanalysis, its principles and techniques. He emphasizes ecology, demonstrating how