Because I am partial to relatively short books, and avidly admire Dr. Freeman's previous collaborative publications on schizophrenia and the psychoses. Although this slim volume does provide some interesting insights into the psychoses, unfortunately, it does not live up to the comprehensiveness of its title. This book concentrates on viewing psychosis from a Jacksonian perspective. Certain signs and symptoms are viewed as a deficit in a particular cerebral function. This releases more automatic and less differentiated functions. The organism then reorganizes its behavior with various restitutions and defenses. This is quite a valuable framework for observing psychosis for it can be productively integrated with other prominent psychological theories.
Freeman has systematically gathered his data by having nurses and other adjunctive staff members make detailed behavioral and phenomenological observations of patients on a psychiatric ward. There are eight major categories of assessment