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Anxiety in Children Edited by Ved P. Varma Croom Helm Ltd., London, 1984 f14.95, 222 pp.

On first perusal of this rather expensive little book, the reviewer was inclined to dismiss it as contrived, incoherent and difficult to get through, but it is evident on second reading that it includes a number of very worthwhile essays on themes not too closely tied to the rather misleading title. Perhaps one expects a small book to be by a single author conveying his own experience from his point of view, and for a multi-author book to cover a large theme in comprehensive fashion; whereas what Ved Varma has apparently done is to commission a number of what might be called vignettes relating to what strikes one as an arbitrarily chosen theme. What we are given is 12 chapters each of about 20 small pages, contributed by a miscellaneous set of authors who have not apparently been required by the Editor to adopt any kind of unity or coherence in their approach. Thus it is by no means clear as one reads through it that the book is based on any agreed definition of what anxiety is and in what particular way it affects children, albeit childhood could be called the age of anxiety. Susanna Isaacs’ (Elmhirst) opening chapter is a quite brilliant synopsis of the psychoanalytic position, described in its historical context, and it contrasts nicely with Martin Herbert’s more eclectic overview in chapter 11 on Psychological Treatment of Childhood Neuroses. In chapter 2 David Jones sets out in detail how anxiety can be rated by the kind of questionnaire that one used to encounter at the back of women’s magazines as a guide to whether one was mad or sane. Philip Barker in chapter 3 gives a somewhat platitudinous account of interviewing tech- niques, and Elsie Osborne (chapter 4), in the first of her two contributions, deals with projective techniques - without, incidentally, mentioning Margaret Lowenfeld’s methods or Winnicotts’ squiggle game. Vaman Lokare’s chapter on Cross Cultural Aspects of Anxiety fails to put its manifestations in anthropological perspective as one had hoped; nor does the succeeding chapter by Philip Barker on the relation of anxiety to family dysfunction arrive at usable conclusions. James Anderson’s essay on Anxieties about Death is a dense and somewhat elliptic, but thoughtful, examina- tion of an important and difficult area and repays careful reading, as does Eamonn O’Doherty’s on Spiritual Anxiety from the point of view of a Roman Catholic who understands psychoanalysis. Elsie Osborne’s second chapter on Understanding and Coping with Anxieties about School says little that the likely reader will not have found out for himself, but every paediatrician would gain from digesting Lindy Burton’s excellent account of Anxiety relating to illness and treatment. Timothy Yates’ concluding chapter deals with Psychotic Anxiety rather in the style of an examination candidate, though admittedly one of considerable learning and experi- ence.

A kind of tentative eclecticism is the impression conveyed by the book as a whole and it is difficult to see for just what readership it was intended and which would benefit from reading it. However the reviewer is glad to have done so and to possess a copy because of the high quality of some contributions and the useful sets of references.

J.A. DAVIS *****