Originally published in 1965 this book was an introduction to post-Freudian methods of diagnosing and treating neurotics of the time. These methods were known collectively as ‘behaviour therapy’, a term indicating their derivation from modern behaviourism, learning theory, and conditioning principles. In the early twentieth century John B. Watson pointed out that ‘psychology, as the behaviourist views it, is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behaviour.’ Behaviour therapy attempts to extend this control to the field of neurotic disorders, and in doing so it makes use of experimental laboratory findings, and of theories based on these. It was seen as the very opposite of the position taken by psychoanalysis. The authors believed that, by the late twentieth century, behaviour therapy would be ‘firmly established as one of the most important, if not the most important, weapon in the hands of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists’.

Originally published in 1973 the editors of this book collected together those studies which had been considered at the time to yield the best evidence in support of Freudian theory, and found on close examination that they failed to provide any such proof. Each paper is printed in full and is followed by a critical discussion which raises questions of statistical treatment, sufficiency of controls and alternative interpretations. The particular usefulness of this format is that it allows readers to form their own opinions while providing helpful suggestions and guidelines on how to approach experimental studies with a critical mind.

This book is intended primarily for those readers who have had no professional training in either Medicine or Psychology, but who are anxious to keep themselves abreast of modern thought in these departments of knowledge. At the same time I hope it may prove serviceable to professional students of these subjects as a preliminary survey of the ground they will have to cover should they desire to specialize in psychotherapies or in the psychology of the abnormal. The topics discussed have been dealt with only in outline. My endeavour has been to state the general principles on which modern conceptions in the Psychology of Medicine are based and to avoid as far as possible all detail which is unncessary for comprehension of these principles.

Originally published in 1970 this title commemorates the men and ideas that started, inspired and established a pioneer institution in British psychiatry. Based on the impetus of Freudian and related innovations after the First World War, the Tavistock Clinic offered treatment, training and research facilities in the field of neurosis, child guidance and later on group relations. Dr Dicks, who had been associated for nearly forty years with the work and personalities that helped to develop the Tavistock venture, describes the struggles and capacity for survival of the clinic. He shows how, belonging neither to the older classical psychiatry nor to orthodox psychoanalysis, and suspect to both, the Clinic nevertheless became increasingly used by the rest of the profession as a psychotherapeutic resource. Dr Dicks describes the influence of the Tavistock on the medical, psychological and social work scene both before and after the Second World War, and assesses its achievements as a centre of psycho- and socio-dynamic thinking. The Tavistock is shown as a pioneer sui generis, launching psychosomatic research and initiating the exciting ventures in social psychiatry associated with the Army in the Second World War. As the Tavistock was the outcome of work with shell-shock victims in the first war, so its offspring, the Institute of Human Relations, was the natural continuation of the military effort in man-management, morale and group dynamic studies. The book includes an account of the inter-relationship between the Clinic, now part of the National Health Service, and the Institute, a private corporation. Still going strong as part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust today this is an opportunity to revisit its early history.

As psychiatry has developed it has proved to be susceptible to the influence of contemporary social and political mores. With its origins in nineteenth-century Europe, psychiatry evolved as an ethnocentric body of knowledge, the vehicle of implicit and overt racism. Originally published in 1988 this author, however, saw no reason why the contemporary psychiatrist should not challenge this ethnocentrism. He provides a critical account of the development of psychiatry in relation to its cultural context and then examined contemporary practice of the time in the light of this development. Throughout, the book is informed by an awareness of issues of race and culture and of their difficult interactions, the author emphasising both the frequency of racist attitudes and the very real cultural distinctions in our society, distinctions that can be used to mask what are actually racist sentiments. What emerges is not just a plea for an anti-racist, culture sensitive psychiatry, but a blueprint for how this can be brought about. He argued that the shift towards community work and social psychiatry could reorientate the profession by confronting it with its social setting and responsibilities. This book represented a significant contribution to this literature for all mental health professionals and social scientists with an interest in this field at the time; the author has gone on to write many more.

Born in Vienna in 1864, Bernard Hollander was a London-based psychiatrist. He is best known for being one of the main proponents of phrenology. This title, originally published in 1916, looks at ‘the numerous nervous illnesses of men, in which the mental factor plays a large part, and which are known as functional disorders, to distinguish them from organic diseases’. He looks at the role of psychotherapy as an emerging treatment for these disorders. There is also a companion volume which looks at the Nervous Disorders of Women.

Born in Vienna in 1864, Bernard Hollander was a London-based psychiatrist. He is best known for being one of the main proponents of phrenology. This title, originally published in 1916, looks at ‘the numerous nervous illnesses of women, in which the mental factor plays a large part, and which are known as functional disorders, as distinguished from organic diseases’. He looks at the role of psychotherapy as an emerging treatment for these disorders. There is also a companion volume which looks at the Nervous Disorders of Men.

Originally published in 1940, this classic study of two schizophrenic case-histories further opened up the seemingly intractable problem of this condition; a task preceded by Jung’s own Psychology of Dementia Praecox. It was Baynes’s grasp of the meaning of the symbol coupled with his wide scholarship that enable him to explore the case-histories in such remarkable and fruitful depth, thus linking pathological psychology through graphic expression and the dream of the myths of mankind and the universal man. This was truly a scientific task. In case 1, the series of dreams, fantasies and active imagination, fully illustrated by the patients’ spontaneous paintings, suggested to him a kind of mythological imagery. Baynes then demonstrates the emergence and development of a hero myth together with its therapeutic effect upon the patient, as an inner personal experience of death and rebirth. Baynes also applied the methods of synthesis to the understanding of modern art and its reflection of the spirit of the times – a realization of the basic split in the socio-religious structure of European Culture. In case 2, the subject was an artist, and out of his own split he seemed to have created a symbolic bridge that would be a therapeutic bridge for himself and a possible model for curing the evil of the times in which we then were living.

Psychiatry regularly comes under attack as a way of caring for and controlling the mentally ill. Originally published in 1986, this title explores the history and theory of psychiatry to illuminate current practice at the time, and shows why mental health services had developed in particular ways. The book was invaluable for all those who needed to understand the problems and processes behind current psychiatric practice at the time – sociologists and psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors, social workers, and health service planners and administrators – and will still be of historical interest today.

Freud once humorously remarked that "Anyone who wants to make a living from the treatment of nervous patients must clearly be able to do something to help them". It is amazing how frequently this simple precept is ignored and, when a patient does not get well, how often the failure is attributed to lack of proper motivation, diminutive ego strength, latent schizophrenia, and a multitude of assorted resistances. Difficulties that arise during therapy are not due to a deliberate conspiracy of neglect on the part of the therapist. They usually come about because of obstructive situations that develop in work with patients with which the therapist is unprepared to cope. During his psychiatric career the author, who spent time both teaching and supervising, collected and collated questions from students and graduate therapists who had raised concerns about psychotherapy that related to such obstructive situations. Originally published in 1982, this volume contains both those questions and his answers.