256 BOOK REVIEWS

A. ARIF, P. H. HUGHES, I. KHAN, U. KHANT, C. J. KLETT. V. NAVARATNAM and M. SHAFIQUE: Drug Dependence-A Methodology for Erlaluating Treatment and Rehabilitation. WHO, Geneva (1987). 68 pp. $7.20.

The methodology to which the title of this WHO publication refers comprises a field-tested assessment inventory together with guidelines for planning and carrying out treatment evaluations. The measures have been designed specifically for use in what the authors term developing countries, and are therefore constructed to be easily and reliably administered by non-specialised staff across a variety of cultures. The value of such design features. however, is equally great the world over, and the employment of internationally applicable evaluation tools can only accelerate scientific and clinical developments. This attempt to provide them is as relevant to European and American practices as it is to Asian and African.

The data gathered using this inventory are all atheoretical, comprising indices of demographic status and social functioning in addition to fairly comprehensive details of actual drug use. This generality is duly stressed in the text. There are two versions, respectively for baseline assessment and for charting subsequent progress in treatment and at follow-up. The record forms are well laid out, with instructions for eliciting and coding the information ready for computer entry.

The news is not all good. however. Although much reference is made to the fact that the inventory has been subjected to ‘field trial‘. the conclusions drawn from it are purely descriptive. For instance, whilst we are told that “the methodology appears to be suitable” for its purposes (p. 15), there is no mention of any interviewer accuracy/reliability study, either within or between cultures. Until questions such as this have been addressed, its usefulness in clinical research remains uncertain: in the meantime there already exist other, better validated, evaluation instruments which may be equally appropriate to many studies.

Finally, a comment on the introductory preamble which, despite commencing with a lucid rationale for the whole enterprise, unfortunately degenerates into an unheralded and disorganised exploration of general methodological issues. The few pages allocated to this task are sufficient only to point out some of the problems, without offering much guidance for their resolution. and consequently tend to confuse rather than illuminate. It is to be hoped that the ‘national authorities’ to whom the document is addressed do not use it as a model for the presentation of any research reports it may inspire.

JANE POWELL

P. D. HARVEY and E. F. WALKER (Eds): Posit&e and Negatil;e Symptoms in Pqxhosis-Description, Research, and Future Directions. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J. (1987). x + 341 pp. f19.95.

The major concern of this book is the validity of making a distinction between positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia. Positive symptoms include delusions, hallucinations and thought disorder and negative symptoms include symptoms such as withdrawal, poverty of speech and anhedonia. The contributors particularly address the problem of the empirical validity of the distinction in terms of whether these differences in observed symptomatology are reflected in schizophrenic outcomes at other levels of analysis. Some also provide useful discussions of the historical and conceptual basis for this distinction. The book reflects the wide range of research in schizophrenia including chapters which focus on various possible correlates of symptoms such as cognitive processes, genetics, prognosis, cerebral structure, and electrodermal responding. Most of the chapters review previously collected research data with particular reference to symptomatic outcome; some also present new data from experiments particularly contrived to investigate the covariation between symptoms and other outcomes. The most interesting of these are the chapters by Knight, Walker and Harvey relating symptomatic outcome to cognitive task performance.

Although some of the contributors discuss findings which appear to be only of peripheral relevance to symptomatic outcomes. perhaps reflecting the origins of the book as a collection of conference papers, the book represents a comprehensive review of the areas, which is now a ‘hot topic’ in schizophrenia research. As such. the book is likely to be of most interest to experimental researchers who have a specific interest in the positive-negative distinction. But, as Neale points out in his afterword, the eventual fate of the positive-negative distinction will probably lie in its ability to add something new to our understanding of schizophrenia, rather than simply as a peg to redo the psychological deficit literature of the last decade now subdivided in some way by positive-negative symptomatology. This book appears to fall in the latter rather than the former camp and therefore its interest to a more general readership is likely to be limited.

DAVID FOWLER

JOACHIM S~IEXSMEIER-PELSTER: Erlernte Hilfosigkeit, Handlungskontrolle und Leistung. Springer, Berlin (1988). 182 pp.

This is an interesting study which combines a theoretical and historical consideration of the concept of learned helplessness with a number of experimental studies in which the author attempts to broaden the concept and explain some of the inconsistencies and anomalies which have appeared in the literature. His point of departure is the rather more complex theoretical basis provided by Kuhl. rather than Seligman’s original theory. He is particularly concerned with attribution theory, i.e. the attribution of different causes for a person’s failure. This reformulation of Seligman’s theory is brought into contact with personality concepts; thus depressives, as compared to non-depressives, attribute failure rather to internal, stable and global causes, success to external, variable and specific ones. Attribution of failure in turn leads to expectations of controllability or uncontrollability respectively, and to some extent the importance one attributes to failure. Also relevant is the importance of the goal that has been set for the individual, the extent of available resources unsuccessfully used etc. All these factors determine the degree to which long-term and stable consequences follow failure, and the author also presents interesting experiments to illustrate this rather complex model. The book certainly serves as a good introduction