Nordic Journal, 1991
In his Foreword, the "grand old man of European psychosomatics" the late Professor J.J. Groen (internist) writes: "It is a privilege to introduce this unusual book. In a time when most doctors practice medicine as a technical application of the natural sciences, the authors, both experienced clinicians, combine the use of modern techniques with human understanding and psychological management of their patients in the practice of internal medicine."
The "psychological managements" dealt with in this book are "partly based on psychological and psychiatric principles, but differ from the specialized "psychotherapy" and can be learned and practised by physicians in combination with their technical medical treatment. Extensive attention is paid to the stresses, ambivalences and incompatibilities which the patients encounter in their communication with the key figures in their family and at work and to which they have unsuccessfully tried to adapt without having been able to solve the problems actively".
Professor Groen further states that the book is personal, the literature critically weighted against the personal experience of the authors and "therefore not a formal, scholastic text that presents the reader with a consensus of generally accepted opinions".
The six co-authors (Coles, Draper, Gieler, Ripman, Seville and Stangeir) have made a splendid contribution to the volume, widening its scope and range. Even so, it is obvious that the book could not have reached such a level of combined sophistication and comprehensiveness without John W. Paulley and Henk E. Pelser's extensive knowledge, experience and skill as scholars, medical doctors and authors.
To clinicians working "by way of" psychosomatic approaches and, perhaps even more, to those who would like to do so, this book might well be the book of the century.
Both Paulley and Pelser are internists, and belong to that small group of people who have furnished Europe with a basis for both the survival and the development of psychosomatic medicine.
Readers will find no difficulty understanding the text since the language throughout is fluent English at its very best: rich, precise and yet simple.
The book covers some 880 disorders and comprises over 11 clinical chapters.