Neurobiology of Cingulate Cortex and Limbic Thalamus: A Comprehensive Handbook . Edited by B. A. Vogt and M. Gabriel. (Pp. 639; illustrated; £166.00.) Birkhauser: Boston. 1993.

both the one or two sessions of a cognitive approach and with medication; others are people with long-standing problems in which the cognitive behavioural intervention is combined with a whole variety of rehabilitative and social approaches, and in one or two others we see the application of a cognitive approach as the main element in an otherwise drug-resistant psychosis. The approach seems to be acceptable to the patients and given the emphasis on helping the patients make sense of their experience, the total service certainly seems improved by this work. However, in this context, the specific benefits of the cognitive behavioural therapy cannot be determined and Kingdon and Turkington are careful to note in their concluding comments that while it is a promising approach, it now needs to be subjected to rigorous controlled treatment evaluation. It would be hard for the reader to use this book as a treatment manual. The style is anecdotal rather than systematic and detail is lacking on the precise elements of therapy. Assessment and formulation are scantily described. Tucked away at the very end of the therapy section is a framework outlining the stages of therapy. This might usefully have been elaborated and been presented as an organizing framework for describing the process of therapy. Despite this rather piecemeal approach, however, there are many useful ideas and comments which will stimulate the interests of clinicians in this area. Much of the work described would improve the quality of relationships with patients, even if systematic cognitive behavioural therapy is not attempted. For that reason I would recommend this book very highly to all professionals working with people with psychosis. On a final note, while recommending this book highly, I could not agree with the decision of the authors to use the masculine pronoun throughout the book when referring to a patient in general terms. The explanation given for this was that, in their group of patients, women were outnumbered by men in a ratio of more than 2 to 1. In my work, I noted a very low referral rate of women in our first study of cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis, despite the fact that approximately equal numbers of men and women carry a diagnosis of schizophrenia. It would be unfortunate if books such as these, by their linguistic choices, further fuelled the myth held by many professionals that schizophrenia is much more common or considerably more distressing for men. PHILIPPA GARETY