The integration of cognition and emotion (or, more colloquially, thinking and feeling) is a key topic in psychological research. Although each of these areas has its own literature, there is overwhelming evidence that cognition and emotion are inextricably linked. Again in colloquial terms, thoughts can generate feelings and vice versa, suggesting that cognition and emotion should be viewed as components of an interacting system rather than as discrete entities. This handbook seeks to provide an integrated picture of the current state of knowledge in this area.

The first, general, section of the book provides valuable historical and back-ground material, including a discussion of research methods. The second section tackles cognitive processes. Here, Ohman's chapter on distinguishing unconscious from conscious emotional processes is worthy of special mention, in that it reminds us that Freud was one of the earliest theorists of cognition and emotion and provides insights and results on the integration of the psychoanalytic and cognitive views of unconscious processes. The succeeding chapter by Bentall & Kinderman on self-regulation, affect and psychosis includes interesting related material on cognitive aspects of defence mechanisms.

The third section of the book is devoted to emotions, including chapters on some less well known topics: jealousy and envy, and the self-conscious emotions (shame, guilt, embarrassment and pride). The fourth section covers theories in cognition and emotion. This includes chapters on network, attributional and appraisal theories. These theories give many insights but, taken as a whole, this section raises questions that are not systematically addressed in any of its component chapters. These concern the problems of defining where the theories overlap, where they conflict and what experiments might be devised to test one theory against another. Such considerations suggest that an ‘over-view’ chapter would have improved this section.

The book concludes with an applied section. This includes chapters providing explicit links between cognition and emotion research and therapy, with coverage of cognitive-behavioural therapy, psychodynamic theory and exposure therapy. A particularly interesting chapter in this section is Averil's account of emotional creativity, which provides a clear summary of this topic and its links to the related constructs of emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. The final chapter comprises an editorial review of future directions in cognition and emotion which draws together the themes from the main text.

This book has both the strengths and weaknesses of the edited handbook format. On the positive side, anyone who wants an introduction to this research area will certainly find a wealth of diverse material to refer to. The drawback of the format is that a reader who is interested in a particular topic will probably find less detail than they want, although extensive references are provided. There is also duplication of material, with the same key studies and theory being described in more than one chapter. In addition, readers will sometimes find material they are interested in either excluded or scattered across chapters rather than collected together. Because of this inevitable scatter, it might have been helpful to conclude each section with an editorial summary/overview; the lack of this in the theory section is particularly acute, but more perspective would also be useful elsewhere in the book.

As a specific example of an exclusion, although many chapters in this text are concerned at one level or another with biological and cognitive aspects of individual differences, there is little discussion of personality. It is surprising to see the two ‘supertraits’ of extraversion and neuroticism receiving little mention, given the vast body of evidence linking them to both cognition and emotion. (Although neuroticism, in the guise of its close relative anxiety, does get a reasonable, if non-explicit, coverage.) To a researcher in individual differences the net result is that some parts of the book have a distinct ‘Hamlet without the prince’ feel. No doubt readers with other interests will form their own views on inclusions and exclusions.

This book is an important reference for use by researchers in cognition and emotion and will be of value to anyone who has interests which overlap this area. Clinicians will certainly also find much valuable material in this text. The price and size of the book may be off-putting to the individual purchaser but it would clearly be a key addition to any serious psychology or psychiatry library.