Psychological Aspects of Physical Symptoms is a worthy addition to the literature. Its most significant feature is the concisely written series of 46 case histories of young men admitted to a medical service. These histories contain a wealth of primary data regarding the setting of the illness, particularly concerning the object relationships of the patients. These data are nicely complemented by verbatim transcripts of the discharge summaries containing the relevant physical findings, accessory clinical data, and course in hospital.
The author pays special attention to several variables such as sensorimotor configurations, somatic identification, sensitized organ systems, affects, and homeostatic shifts for each patient's illness. These inferences or judgments, while provocative, posed problems to this reader because of questions regarding their reliability. The basis for the author's denoting a particular "organ system" as "sensitized" is obscure.
The comments following each clinical report are an excellent source of references and contain plausible