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Book Review: Psychiatry and Mysticism

admission taken from a recent Royal College of Psychiatrists report. "The average standard of psychiatric practice in Britain is abysmally low", and Dr. Clare goes on to review the state of psychiatric services, psychiatric education, and the future of psychiatry, in Britain. As with the book as a whole, though he concentrates on Britain, there is much that can be learned by concerned readers on this side of the Atlantic. Dr. Clare offers the comments of Thomas Freeman, who attempted to explain the difficulty British psychiatry has had in attracting (and keeping) many high quality entrants. Dr. Freeman wrote "a fad for natural science methodology, an uncritical advocacy of biochemical theories of mental illness and a magical belief in the curative powers of chemotherapy put off intending psychiatrists by an extreme emphasis on the biological, and a disregard for the patient as a person." This book therefore provides stimulating discussions of some of the most difficult issues in psychiatry. It includes much factual information in the areas it looks at such as Schizophrenia, Psychiatric Services, ECT, Suicide, and so on. It is written from a British viewpoint and in the areas of psychotherapy and psychodynamic theory is deficient and biased, but apart from that would be useful reading for final year residents and those preparing for examinations, while other psychiatrists can also gain much from it.