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Book Reviews Walter Vandereycken, Elly Kog, Johan Vanderlinden (eds) The Family Approach to Eating Disorders Assessment and Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia PMA Publishing, Great Neck 1989. VII+ 392 pp.; US $45.00 ISBN 0–89335–306-X The main editor of this book, Dr. Walter Vandereycken, MD PhD, is psychiatrist and head of the Department of Behavior Therapy (including the Eating Disorders Unit), University Psychiatric Center (UPC), Kortenberg, and Associate Professor of Psy-chopathology, University of Leuven. Coeditors are Vandereycken’s close coworkers, namely Drs. Elly Kog and Johan Vanderlinden. This very pregnant book particularly includes both highly personally formulated family approaches (in the sense of the Minuchin model) vis-à-vis patients suffering from eating disorders as well as their subsequent application in daily practice. The clinicopsychoso-matic research context, in which these family approaches were practised, as well as the deduced consequences particularly with regard to family-oriented psychotherapeutic considerations are imposing concerning their original features. Because of the greatly condensed contents of the Kortenberg group book, this review must be confined to some well-selected key words Subsequent to an overview of the references and the earlier dealing of family doctors with eating disorder patients (chapters 2 and 3), Vandereycken et al. discuss the multiple problems with which the investigator is faced in family research (chapters 4 and 5) including the presentation of the ‘Leuven Family Questionnaire’ (chapter 6). Further chapters (7–10) concern special dynamic process findings with regard to those families in which a patient with eating disorders is included. The chapters 11–18 address the treatment of eating disorders insofar as they concern the various ways of dealing with family issues. In agreement with the characteristic systemically oriented movements (particularly the Milano group and the ‘New Heidelberg School’), this interesting book makes also markedly clear the universally great relevance of family therapy within the farreaching psychotherapeutic spectrum in patients suffering from eating disorders. On the basis of the scientific trend of Vandereycken et al., it is very welcome that they are partially concerned to connect their clinicopsychoso-matic strategies with empirical research, for in the majority of family therapists, supplementarily applied procedures, which are empirically founded, rate low. But if we make a comparison between the family therapy approach of the Vandereycken group on one hand as well as the Milano and the Heidelberg group on the other hand, then considerable differences with regard to the respective psychotherapeutic technique are evident. Therefore, the necessity becomes clear to systematically examine the decisively important psychotherapeutic effectivity factors of every systemic method. Starting from such a ‘filtering’ of the finally important psychotherapeutic effectivity factors, a very optimal systemic method may be developed especially in eating disorders, too. Starting from this clinically greatly important