Customer Reviews

Current Diagnosis & Treatment in Psychiatry

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a medical doctor in my country (Brazil)and I am a general practitioner with a large experience in treating people with psychiatric problems.When I was a medical student my coleagues of university indicated the current books series.At that time this books was very cheap and after read my first book , current medical diagnosis and treatment , I begin to acquire other books of current series.
The hallmark of this series is to be cheap,concise and easy to read ( a very important feature for people of other countries where english is not the official language ).
This book has two parts. The first part is about theory of psychiatry with chapters about psycology , neurosciences , etc.
The second part is a well-writed and pratical text explaining all-over diseases covered in DSM-IV.
Each disease explanation begins with the corresponding DSM-IV criteria of diagnosis and includes diferential diagnosis,treatment and outcomes in a step-by-step mode which every medical professional can understand.
This book is a cost-effective investment.
I recomend too the other books of current series.

I agree with the other favorable reviews. The Lange series in general is amazing--affordable and complete at the same time. I was impressed with the detailed discussion of alternate theories of personality development, the possible etiologies of the mental illnesses, and the theories of drug action. Many psychiatric texts, including the very pricy "standards," tend to be written in a dogmatic, cookbook style. In contrast, the Lange book does not try to shield the reader from the ambiguity and uncertainty that face anyone treating the mental disorders.

I noticed a few important errors, though. One of the drug side effect charts contains the absurd assertion that tranylcypromine is highly sedating (in fact, it is so activating that a few patients have used it to get a meth-like "high") whereas trazadone (used more as a sleep aid than as an antidepressant) is "low" in sedation. Obviously, one should not rely on this book exclusively for prescribing infomation.

In combination with a more carefully edited psychopharmacology reference, *Current Diagnosis...* should be very useful to both serious medical students and new psychiatric residents.

Also recommended: For pre-1994 medications, the late Dr. Bernstein's *Drug Therapy in Psychiatry* remains the best monograph on the subject.

From infancy to adolescence, it is hard to find any medium-sized book that described developmental psychiatry (and psychology) the way this 640-paged "Current Diagnosis & Treatment in Psychiatry" did.
Generous information were given to both psycho-etiology (including psychiatric genetics) and psycho-pharmacology. Anxiety, eating and sleeping disorders, as well as impulse-control problems were explained in details.
The topics contained in this book are so captivating and well-arranged that you will never want to stop once you've started. The book is a masterpiece!

Calls ME (CFS) and Fibromyalgia "fashionable diagnoses" that usually have no basis and are really somatoform disorders (p.448). There are over 4,000 articles in peer reviewed medical journals showing frank biological pathology in ME.

This is a generally good condensed reference, although the index could be a little better.

Book arrived as expected in great condition and in a timely manner. Book mandatory for Practitioner school.