`Loners is destined to be a clinical classic... I wish I had had Loners to read when I began my career... I commend this book to all those starting out on their mental health careers as an insightful portrait of an important condition and as a standard of clarity and brevity for their own research and writing. I commend it as well to mature clinicians whose understanding will be sharpened by studying its contents. This monograph demonstrates the importance of careful clinical longitudinal observation and incisive thought for the provision of appropriate psychiatric care for children and their families.' From the foreward by Leon Eisenberg Some children are solitary and unable to adapt to the social and educational demands of school life. Some are gifted; most cope better once they leave school. In Loners, Sula Wolff discusses the nature and origins of their difficulties and compares them with autism, Asperger's syndrome and schizoid/schizotypal personality disorders. Sula Wolff illustrates follow-up studies with case histories of children and adults seen in the course of twenty years, as well as with discussions of the apparent eccentricities of some exceptional people who catch the public eye. The book shows the necessity of the clinical recognition of the condition. Loners will help psychiatrists towards a realistic approach to the treatment of afflicted people, both children and adults.