Title: Case book in abnormal psychology
Description: A clinical case study may be considered the organization and interpretation of observations, communications, and test findings within some theoretical framework. The requirements of a useful framework are that it be broad enough to encompass a variety of data yet specific enough to be applicable to the individual case. There are many theoretical frameworks that more or less satisfy these criteria. Which one the investigator chooses to use will be a function of his intellectual affiliations and personal inclination. Whatever his choice he will have to begin his work of organizing and interpreting with a single datum: the presenting complaint or symptom of the patient. This may be the patient's version of what is wrong with him, or the complaint of others regarding some aspect of his behavior. In either case the investigator may consider the symptom an explicit index of dysfunction, and look further to discover the particular nature of the dysfunction and its severity.

The purpose for which a case study is used will, to a great extent, determine the questions to be asked of the data. Of these uses we may point up three that seem to be most common: Treatment, Research, and Teaching. The case study may be used as the basis for treatment of symptoms and problems underlying them--diagnosis that must precede or accompany therapeutic intervention. The research use of a case study may or may not affect the particular patient involved, concerning itself primarily with extending knowledge. It is in the use of the case study as a heuristic device that this book is primarily concerned. Case data have been presented with relatively little explicit interpretation or theoretical formulation so that the student, under the guidance of his instructor, may retrace the empirical steps that were taken in achieving understanding. It was inevitable that our own theoretical orientation should contribute to our organization of the material.

Nevertheless, the case presentations should adequately fulfill two main purposes: (1) The provision of representative empirical data or "pictures" of various psychological disorders, and (2) presentation of the data in such a manner as to facilitate theoretical interpretation of the development of these disorders. The level of interpretation will vary with the background of the reader. The case studies should lend themselves to sound interpretation by the beginning student as well as to the more profound interpretations by those psychologically more sophisticated. The following case studies seem to us to be a reasonable sampling of the various categories of psychological disorders. They do not represent all disorders, nor was this our intention. Given the usual limitations and pressures of space and theoretical orientation, this is our selection. The reader has probably already noted from the table of contents the general trend in the presentation of cases.

Beginning with child-behavior problems we have gone on to adolescent then adult disturbances, all of which could without difficulty be encompassed by the term neurotic. The next grouping of cases brings together psychological disturbances or limitations that constitute problems with which society has been forced to deal. The cases that follow become more serious whether it be through the irreversibility of brain damage or severe psychosis.
Subjects: Cases, clinical reports, statistics, Pathological Psychology, Case studies, Neurotic Disorders, Psychopathology, Psychotic Disorders