Book review

摘要

Nick Read is, as the book jacket tells us, a ‘consultant physician and psychoanalytical psychotherapist who works to help people cope with illnesses that have no clear cause or pathology’. If either the subject or disciplinary background in the first sentence make you disinclined to read further, I suggest that you have identified both a personal bias and a learning need which is worth exploring a little more, given the increasing need for GPs to be able to deal effectively with complex multisystem problems. Dr Read has done a lifetime's work in the field and has published over 500 articles during his academic career, of which he humbly references only three — while providing almost 60 pages of further notes and bibliography that will allow anyone to pursue his arguments through the rest of the relevant literature and key authors. The book itself is, however, very approachable in its writing style, with a blend of short case studies, personal insights, and narrative overview. Nine chapters cover the changing epidemiology of both illness and patterns of health care, with an increasing focus on those so-called ‘functional illnesses’ or patients with ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ (MUS); characterised (page 20) as: