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This book, which was written for the general practitioner of medicine, the specialist and the medical student, fills an important need in the proper understanding of the psychic background of the patient and the influence of mental reactions, worries, fears and anxieties on the course of acute and chronic diseases. The author lives up to the promise in his introduction that "the book was not intended for public consumption" by the conservative common sense manner in which he presents its contents. He divides the problems of patients into major and minor; the former are to be handled by the psychiatrist, because of the necessity of applying special technics; the latter, by the general practitioner or the medical specialist, because of the superficial, mild nature of the complaint. The role of the nonpsychiatric practitioner of medicine should in this as in other fields be prophylactic "everyday treatment of everyday problems."
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