Book reviews

DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2005.00510.x

Research in psychiatry and related fields.Edited by Arthur Yuwiler and Lennart Wetterberg. Published by

Studentlitteratur, Lund, Sweden. 2004. 165 pp. Paperback.

ISBN 91-44-03395-8

As young unimportant junior researchers grow into mature,important seniors, many of us forget about the problems,troubles, doubts, and defeats characterizing life as a youngresearcher.When reading this book I sensed two wise and happy men

able to remember all the epochs of their scientific life, also theirfirst years in business.The authors go through a long list of practical issues ending

up with three chapters about how to read a paper, how to writea paper and how to write an application for a grant,wonderfully presented as a kind of case story.It is my experience that you will never be a researcher or

scientist by reading books about how to do research andscience, but if written by honest men and women able toremember the pre-important-distinguished-famous era of theircareers they may be valuable and helpful supplements to aguided craft’s apprenticeship under supervision of seniorcolleagues without amnesia for the starting part of theircareer. This book is definitely in the better end of the spectrum.Besides giving a lot of very good information, the book has a

wonderful anchoring in real life: e.g. about validity: �Unfortu-nately, in psychiatry, most syndromes are essentially mentalconstructs of unknown etiology. There is, therefore, no ��true��known etiological agent against which to assess the validity ofa test�; about the necessity of doing quantitative researchtogether with biostatisticians: �This is not a textbook onstatistics nor can it substitute for the insights of a real livestatistician�; and about publishing peer-reviewed or non-peer-reviewed: �While important articles may appear in non-peer-reviewed journals, don’t bet on it. Most are printed to supportthe views of the editor, publisher, or a major advertiser and areoften no more than technical advertisements. The averagephysician’s mail is flooded with them.�The book opens in its very first line by reminding us �Science

is fun – work, but fun�. There are so many unsolved problemsin psychiatry and related fields that it is important that researchbecomes a natural and mandatory part of being a clinicalworking psychiatrist or working in allied fields. Therefore, it isimportant that daily clinical life stops thinking about researchas something distant and sacrosanct. Science is fun.Please let me add: science is fun, and if it is not fun, it is not

science.Thank you for the book.

Povl Munk-JørgensenUnit for Psychiatric Research

Aalborg Psychiatric Hospital

Mølleparkvej 10, PO Box 210

DK-9100 Aalborg, Denmark

DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2005.00517.x

Treating schizophrenia in the prodromal phaseBy A. Yung, L. Phillips and P.D. McGorry (eds). Published by

Taylor and Francis, London, 2004. 152pp. Paperback, £25.00.

ISBN 1-84184-327-X

This book is a timely contribution to a new and sometimescontroversial field. It presents not only the theoretical back-ground to the ideal of intervening in the schizophrenic processbefore the first acute psychotic breakdown, but also records theexperience and provides advice from a group that has extensivehands-on experience and that has become renowned interna-tionally for their ground-breaking work. The book compriseseight chapters, covering conceptual issues, background infor-mation, information on establishing a service for high riskindividuals as well as presenting a summary of the latestresearch findings in the treatment of this unique group ofpatients. It addresses complex theoretical and ethical issuessuch as defining the onset of illness, distinguishing �normal�from �abnormal� and the ethics of treating subjects who are notyet psychotic. It furthermore addresses practical issues insetting up a service of this nature, including the recruiting andtraining of staff, detecting of target groups and the commu-nication of high-risk status to individuals and their families.The authors make generous use of case reports to illustratepertinent issues. Perhaps the most commendable feature of thispublication is the fact that it does not propose to provide thedefining answers to all questions, but is rather willing toexplore these issues as part of an evolving field of research.

Piet OosthuizenDepartment of Psychiatry

University of Stellenbosch

Cape Town

South Africa

E-mail: pieto@sun.ac.za

Acta Psychiatr Scand 2005: 111: 399All rights reserved

Copyright � Blackwell Munksgaard 2005

ACTA PSYCHIATRICASCANDINAVICA

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