Psychiatric Care, Psychiatry Simplified for Therapeutic Action.

Abstract

Dr. Ruesch and his coauthors are to be congratulated for having written a clear, concise handbook of psychiatric care principles and operations. Although the authors state that they have intentionally simplified and selected their material, a wide variety of topics are carefully examined, ranging from a discussion of the nature of psychiatry to a guide to the management of ambulatory, hospitalized, and discharged patients. The emphasis of the book is on empiric operations and therapeutic actions. The authors have called upon their knowledge of psychiatric phenomenology, sound medical principles, social field concepts, and therapeutic communications to enable the greatest number of persons to give appropriate care to a large number of patients who heretofore have not had the opportunity to benefit from recent advances in psychiatry. It would seem that the authors wish to fill a certain informational gap which they feel exists