Depressive Disorders in the Community

The author of this book has rare qualifications and experience. He is a GP. who acquired experience in psychiatry and subsequently, by intention, settled in a rural practice. Here, the population is remarkably static and for many years he has been keeping consistent, careful records of the frequency of psychological illness of all types amongst the patients. In offering a personal survey by a skilled observer in a defined population over a period of 25 years, Watts makes a unique and invaluable contribution. The major value of the book is to establish the very great importance of depressive illness in general practice, in a way which no epidemiological survey or study of hospital records could rival. The incidence of depression shown may perhaps be unusually high in this area. Some psychiatrists have also been impressed by the particular frequency of depressive and manic illnesses in these areas. If the true national figures are less than the ones collected here, depression is probably much more common than many have thought. The reliability of the present work is substantiated in a number of clinical histories and studies in depth of variation of illness over many years in individual patients. There is also evidence of different types of illness on different occasions in the same individual. GP's and psychiatrists alike may read this book with benefit. It is also a scientific work of the first im-