AUTHOR’S PROOF Columns Review

re vie w
mirrors the therapy itself - it is a clarification, communication analysis, columns
Clinician’s Quick Guide pragmatic approach to helping decision analysis and role-play.
to Interpersonal individuals master their difficulties by Further sections describe the evidence
developing new relationships and by base for adaptations of interpersonal
Psychotherapy psychotherapy for individuals with other
learning to recognise their own emotional
Myrna M. Wiessman, John C. responses. mood (various types of depression) and
Markowitz & Gerald L. Klerman Section one on how to conduct inter- non-mood (e.g. anxiety and eating)
Oxford University Press, 2007, personal psychotherapy describes all the disorders and across cultures.
US$29.80 pb, 208 pp. nitty-gritty, from an initial detailed history The authors give a concise account of
ISBN 0-19530-941-3 which includes extensive attention to the interpersonal psychotherapy as a struc-
patient’s relationships using the ‘inter- tured time-limited therapy. The book is
The authors categorise their guide as a intended for both practising psycho-
‘how to’ book - to those unfamiliar with personal inventory,’ through diagnosis,
‘prescribing the sick role’ and treatment therapists and those who want to train as
interpersonal psychotherapy it will be a
formulation. Therapist and patient agree a a therapist. If you have been interested by
revelation, laying out the essence of this interpersonal psychotherapy, but haven’t
therapeutic approach, references to focus for treatment identifying the
presenting interpersonal problem as been quite sure what it really involves,
different therapies abound. then this is the book to read.
Interpersonal psychotherapy was stemming from one of four possible
developed in the USA in the 1970s by areas: grief, interpersonal disputes, role
Anne Nightingale Consultant Psychiatrist in
Gerald Klerman, Myrna Weissman and transitions or interpersonal deficits.
Psychotherapy, Lansdowne Clinic, 3 Whittingehame
colleagues. It originated from an attempt Clinical vignettes illustrate work with Gardens, Great Western Road, Glasgow G12 0AA
to design a structured supportive these problem areas, providing informa- email: anne.nightingale@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
psychotherapy for a randomised clinical tion on therapeutic techniques such as
trial of treatments for depression. The non-directive exploration, direct
history of interpersonal psychotherapy elicitation, encouragement of affect, doi: 10.1192/pb.bp.107.016394

miscellany
enhanced pensions (1910-2030) which treatment for an outcast group and
Writing the College’s should be of interest to Andrew Scull. In Arthur Ashley Cooper, the Seventh Earl of
history our archives I found much less written by Shaftesbury, was the paragon for the 19th
patients about ourselves than our views century. Rational psychiatrists at the
My views of British psychiatry over the
of patients and their illnesses. One hospital that bears Maudsley’s name were
past 200 years have changed slightly
splendid online archive can only partially the most important influences in the UK in
through writing this book. I am now more
remedy this. the 20th century. The theories of Sigmund
sceptical about some of our achieve-
I can summarise my current views Freud still affect the way we all think and
ments, though there have been many, and
which are that psychiatry must remain a have a part to play in psychotherapy. The
major, advances in trying to help those
branch of medicine and should be based 21st century has started with the National
with mental illness. This account of the
on science. Diagnosis is uncertain and Health Service undergoing ever more
College and its forerunners tries to give
mental illnesses still attract stigma. Treat- rapid reorganisations and pressures to
some account of those shortcomings as
ment options remain limited and sympto- reach targets. Psychiatrists in all their
well as successes. No psychiatrist can be
matic and bizarre illnesses have attracted manifestations in this century should
proud of the masturbatory theory of
bizarre treatments in the past. Even now, follow in the footsteps of giants such as
mental illness 150 years ago, or the uncri-
psychiatric illnesses can show such Shaftesbury and Crichton-Browne in the
tical use of leucotomy 50 years ago. I
stubbornness to treatment that they 19th century and Mott, Mapother, Lewis
have put much detail in the online archives
expose our ignorance of their pathology and their followers in the 20th century. I
since no one would have welcomed a
and aetiology, and can sometimes arouse end by saying that if the reader has not
second volume consisting solely of
aggressive reactions in baffled and already bought a copy of Madness to
appendices and those who browse
frustrated therapists. Some treatments do Mental Illness, they should do so at once
through them will find occasional obscure
not work and placebo responses can be as they will find much to ponder.
revelations; for example an account of the
pre-College insurrection (1968-1972) by effective. The education and training of all Thomas Bewley
trainee psychiatrists and the disgraceful who work with the mentally ill should
way they were treated by the Council of seek to achieve a humane, kindly but
the Royal Medico-Psychological Associa- sceptical and scientific approach. The
tion, or the account of psychiatrists’ asylum tradition carried out humane doi: 10.1192/pb.bp.108.021642

279