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At present there seems to be a paucity of literature by which a beginner can orient himself in the field of social psychiatry—that which is available either being intended for popular consumption or being too advanced to be of value without some preliminary knowledge of the subject. It is this gap which this monograph seems excellently qualified to fill. Although social psychiatry is such a young science that many of its conclusions must be tentative, there is a rapidly growing body of material that seems to indicate that the adult personality results from the interplay between the person's innate equipment and the social setting of his childhood, and that the latter factors, because of their variability, exert a more powerful ultimate effect than the former. Furthermore, because these factors are capable of alleviation, they can be modified in order to aid the person's adjustment. The author has surveyed these factors