Book Reviews 403

sion. My recommendation to the child psychiatrist would be to set TheEssential Piaget beside his bed and savor it from time to time on nights ofinsomnia. but leave the structural approach aside. at least for the timebeing.

Annual Progress in Child Psychiatry and Child Development.Edited by Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas. New York:Brunner/Mazel, 1977,752 pp., $17.00.

Reviewed by Ruth L. LaVietes, M.D.

This Annual. the ninth and one of the most voluminous in the series,contains 40 articles and more than 700 pages. The editors have culled theEnglish-language literature for 1975 for a selection of papers that reflects.in their opinion, the most significant contributions. About half the itemsthis year are from such familiar periodicals as this Journal. the Archives ofGeneral Psychiatry. the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, and the Journal ofthe American Psychiatric Association. The other papers are from moreesoteric sources. The continued popularity of the Annual Progress is evi­dence of its value. Not only does it highlight and assemble informationworth rereading and storing for convenient reference, but, more impor­tantly. it exposes readers to varying points of view from other places,other disciplines, and other frames of reference. This can serve as anantidote to the narrow professionalism that is the hazard of the specialist.

The hazard the editors face in presenting their selections as the year's"top 40" is that readers may expect each article to be a gem. Given thevagaries of interest and judgment. there is bound to be disappointment.The 40 papers are grouped in 13 categories, each containing 2 to 4articles and a brief editorial introduction, with a sentence or two indicat­ing the reason for the choices. It is somewhat difficult to understand thegrouping system. Some sections, such as "Clinical Issues," are comprehen­sive; others, such as "Adoption Studies," are quite narrow. There is asection on "Violence and Child Abuse" and an overlapping one on "Ado­lescent Violence." Nevertheless, the individual papers are a stimulatingmix of theoretical and pragmatic. research and clinical, hard data andopmu)/1.

Dr. Lal/ietes is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,Nell' York Medical College, Nell' York, N.Y.