Book Reviews : Unwillingly to School School phobia or school refusal: a medico-social problem (2nd edition) Jack H. Kahn and Jean P. Nursten Pergamon
| Published date | 01 June 1969 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455056901500215 |
| Date | 01 June 1969 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Unwillingly to School
Education and the Concept
School phobia or school refusal:
of Mental Health
a medico-social problem (2nd edition)
John Wilson
Jack H. Kahn and Jean P. Nursten
Routledge &
Kegan Paul (Students’
Pergamon
Library of Education) 16s. cloth, 8s.
The first edition of this book was sub-
paper
titled &dquo;the place of the Child Guidance
This is a short book, aimed primarily
Clinic in the treatment of school pho-
at the teacher or student of education.
bia&dquo;. The subtitle to the second edition
After examining some of the concepts
indicates the authors’ intention of broad-
used in talking about mental health, the
ening the basis of discussion. To this
author devotes the most important chap-
end they add a chapter which briefly
ter in the book to a consideration of the
considers the treatment approach of
idea that most mental health problems,
some other professions who may have
if not the result of physical causes, can
to deal with disturbed school attendance.
be ascribed to mislearning in early child-
There is a short account of behaviour
hood, causing irrationality. This irrati-
therapy and its application to problems
onality, sufficient to be considered as
of school refusal which allows for some
mental ill-health, can be overcome by
correction of the exclusively psychoana-
&dquo;educating&dquo; as much as by &dquo;curing&dquo;.
lytic slant of the first edition.
The book does not explore the concept
Though the scope is enlarged, the im-
of personality, of emotional develop-
pact of the book is, if anything, reduced.
ment or retardation, of perception, of
There is space to deal with alternative
self-perception, or many other compon-
treatments only in a cursory and tenta-
ents of an adequate concept of mental
...
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