Book Review: Basic Psychiatry for Corrections Workers
| Published date | 01 December 1978 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486587801100408 |
| Date | 01 December 1978 |
| Author | Allen A Bartholomew |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
252 BOOK
REVIEWS
BOOK REVIEWS
ANZJ
Crim
(1978)
11
Basic Psychiatry for Corrections Workers. Henry LHartman. Charles C
Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1977, $USI6.75.
Sir Denis Hill wrote, in his obituary to the late Dr
Peter
Scott, "Although he
had
been
a
member
of
the first committee which
had
recommended
what
are
now
called 'medium security units' for mentally abnormal offenders in the NHS,
by
1970 he saw in this a threat to the
development
of the prison medical service.
He
wanted
to make the prisons more like hospitals,
not
the hospitals
more
like
prisons. He saw no valid arguments against the
care
of the mentally sick in
prisons,
but
wanted
a
wide
range of facilities in prisons
and
hospitals." This
point of view, espoused
by
Scott, does
not
commend
itself to all correctional
administrators
and
not,
oddly
enough, to all mental health administrators.
However, if correctional workers are to
be,
and
hopefully will
be,
involved in
the care of a
number
of
the mentally sick, then there is a
need
for a text
concerned with the subject of psychiatry for the correctional worker.
This
book
by
Hartman
is offered to fill such a
need
and
the text "has grown
out of in-service training programs"
with
which the author has
been
"intermittently involved
over
the past 25 years". No one
can
cavil with the
experience
and
expertise of the author: Medical Director,
Court
Diagnostic
and
Treatment
Center; Psychiatric Consultant, Juvenile
Court
and
Child Study
Institute, Lucas County, Ohio;
and
Clinical Professor of Forensic Psychiatry,
Medical College of Ohio at Toledo.
The
format of the
textis
interesting.
Part
1is concerned with Mental Disorders
(263 pages) and reads like many standard didactic psychiatric publications. Part
2 is concerned with Interviewing (102 pages) whilst the third
and
last, Part 3, is
concerned with Drugs
and
Alcohol. In addition to the break-up into these three
parts, the .author has
added
various sections at appropriate places concerned
with the "Role of the Correctional Worker in Pedophilia" (p 220)
and
"Incest" (p 227). So
much
for the format.
What
about
the content?
It is not easy to
comment
upon this aspect of the book. It must
be
accepted
that the text is to be
read
by
correctional workers who have little or no expertise
or knowledge of the practice of psychiatry. This means that
the
facts must be
presented in a clear
and
straight
forward
manner
and
that the author should not
become involved
debating
various unusual
and
contentious issues. Having said
this, it must be
admitted
that the
book
is possibly too simple
and
didactic. It is
true that the author writes (p 178) on "the BorderlineSyndrome"
but
this is dealt
with in some three
pages
and
other conditions, eg Manic-Depressive Illness,
Circular
Type
(296.3), are dealt with in terms of "black
and
white" whereas
clinical experience
rather
suggests that most cases seen by correctional workers
are "grey". It might -
--have
been
valuable to present asection
concerned with the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses
and
cite research as that
by Katz
and
his colleagues as well as the "experiment"
conducted
by
Rosenhan.
But it is easy to
be
critical
and
to perhaps confuse the psychiatrically
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