Abstract
The number and complexity of data and ideas pertaining to transcultural psychiatry have grown to such an extent that it is becoming more and more difficult to assess with clarity the present state of knowledge in the field and to outline with coherence areas and priorities for research. A. KIEV, in a well timed and highly significant book, has achieved such an objective. This book should make a major impact on anthropology, psychiatry, and related fields. A similar need is felt for a critical clarification of major trends in cross-cultural psychology. J. L. M. DAWSON reviews and discusses some theoretical issues related to cross cultural findings in psychology. R. GORNEY suggests that achievement, aggression, and mental illness are closely linked with, if not caused by, such culturally deter mined factors as the intensity of interpersonal relationships, the presence or absence of intrasocial competition, and the degree of synergy in a society. A good example of uses and abuses of statistics in transcultural psychiatry is furnished by R. LYNN's two publications in which an exceedingly wide gamut of human phenomena is found to be correlated.
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