Rating: 
Summary: A GREAT alternative to the cumbersome DSM-IV
Review: As a case manager for people with serious mental illnesses and/or co-occurring disorders, I'm digging into the DSM-IV a lot. I LOVE this smaller edition. It covers the basics of the phone-book sized DSM-IV, without all the generally needless details. If I need more information (and it's rare that I do), then I borrow a co-worker's full-sized DSM-IV. But 99 percent of the time, this great little edition does the job. For those who have heavy caseloads and cluttered desks and too much paperwork, this book is a joy because it cuts to the basics. If you are in private practice and have time to sit around and peruse the DSM-IV, then go ahead and get the full-sized version for more money. But for those of us on the front lines in the mental health field, this book is just what the doctor ordered...
Rating: 
Summary: As a psychiatrist I abhor the DSM
Review: Did you know that a bad hair day is a psychiatric condition? Hey look it up under adjustment disorder with anxiety! Anything in life that goes wrong and the baffling complexity wonder strife and beauty in the human condition all boiled down to neat little categories basically for insurance billing. It was interesting for me to observe in the late 80s that the diagnosis of major depression went up dramatically when insurance companies stopped paying for alcoholism and adjustment disorder of adolescence. This is a book written by people who want to categorize the uncategorizable. Kind of like that poetry book Robin Williams tore up in Dead Poets Society. You know, the one that came up with a formula for greatness of a poem. Sure some conditions like bipolar disorder seem to be somewhat genetic and discrete but most of this is just drawing fine lines through a fuzzy set. This book is a disgrace to the profession and part of the reason psychiatrists have a bad public image. It is the same mentality responsible for the overprescription of Ritalin...classifying normal variation or a societal adjustment as illness.
Rating:
Summary: As a psychiatrist I abhor the DSM
Review: Did you know that a bad hair day is a psychiatric condition? Hey look it up under adjustment disorder with anxiety! Anything in life that goes wrong and the baffling complexity wonder strife and beauty in the human condition all boiled down to neat little categories basically for insurance billing. It was interesting for me to observe in the late 80s that the diagnosis of major depression went up dramatically when insurance companies stopped paying for alcoholism and adjustment disorder of adolescence. This is a book written by people who want to categorize the uncategorizable. Kind of like that poetry book Robin Williams tore up in Dead Poets Society. You know, the one that came up with a formula for greatness of a poem. Sure some conditions like bipolar disorder seem to be somewhat genetic and discrete but most of this is just drawing fine lines through a fuzzy set. This book is a disgrace to the profession and part of the reason psychiatrists have a bad public image. It is the same mentality responsible for the overprescription of Ritalin...classifying normal variation or a societal adjustment as illness.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Useful...Better than the big one
Review: I am a psychiatry resident and I find this book extremely useful. Its small, easy to carry around, very user friendly and helps for quick reference in all spheres. Much much better than carrying the larger DSM IV around. I highly recommend this for all mental health professionals.
Rating:
Summary: How does this differ from the regular, desk reference DSM IV
Review: Is there any difference from the regular DSM IV desk reference?
Rating:
Summary: My constant companion
Review: The argument "diagnosis/no diagnosis" should be over with by now. A patient may be treated in a community mental health setting, then in a hospital, then elsewhere. The referring clinician needs to provide information about her difficulty, and diagnosis is a concise and helpful way of doing this. Her care will be paid for by an insurance company or a government entity, which usually (whether we like it or not) will ask for a number to ensure they have a disease that "meets criteria." Careful training in diagnosis is needed to ensure health professionals don't have a cavalier attitude towards the diagnoses they provide; but simply sticking to the criteria outlined in the IV-TR helps ward off such lack of carefulness. It also helps make it more likely that Dr. X in San Francisco is talking about the same thing when he says "schizophrenia, paranoid type" as Dr. Y in Virginia Beach when he says "schizophrenia, paranoid type." Such reliability is essential in our continued research on mental illness and substance abuse. That said, a clinician in a hospital or clinic setting who needs to understand or determine diagnosis can benefit from both the hardcover versions of the DSM-IV-TR and this spiral bound version. I myself have the hardbound DSM-IV, and instead of purchasing both TR's, simply purchased the spiral-bound DSM-IV-TR. The spiral bound is essential because, with so much use, a glued binding will quickly fall apart. As a clinician currently assigned to a county hospital screening site, I carry my little spiral book everywhere. It fits easily into my purse, but it's not so small that the print is hard to read. There is even a pull-out of all the diagnoses at the beginning that's handy to glance at or tack on the wall. You will need the hardbound because of the additional information, but if your work requires you to do evaluations in a variety of settings, or even if you know you will be referring to it often and don't want to be bothered getting the big one off the shelf, definitely purchase this one as well. Kelly L. Norman, ACSW
Rating:
Summary: My constant companion
Review: The argument "diagnosis/no diagnosis" should be over with by now. A patient may be treated in a community mental health setting, then in a hospital, then elsewhere. The referring clinician needs to provide information about her difficulty, and diagnosis is a concise and helpful way of doing this. Her care will be paid for by an insurance company or a government entity, which usually (whether we like it or not) will ask for a number to ensure they have a disease that "meets criteria." Careful training in diagnosis is needed to ensure health professionals don't have a cavalier attitude towards the diagnoses they provide; but simply sticking to the criteria outlined in the IV-TR helps ward off such lack of carefulness. It also helps make it more likely that Dr. X in San Francisco is talking about the same thing when he says "schizophrenia, paranoid type" as Dr. Y in Virginia Beach when he says "schizophrenia, paranoid type." Such reliability is essential in our continued research on mental illness and substance abuse. That said, a clinician in a hospital or clinic setting who needs to understand or determine diagnosis can benefit from both the hardcover versions of the DSM-IV-TR and this spiral bound version. I myself have the hardbound DSM-IV, and instead of purchasing both TR's, simply purchased the spiral-bound DSM-IV-TR. The spiral bound is essential because, with so much use, a glued binding will quickly fall apart. As a clinician currently assigned to a county hospital screening site, I carry my little spiral book everywhere. It fits easily into my purse, but it's not so small that the print is hard to read. There is even a pull-out of all the diagnoses at the beginning that's handy to glance at or tack on the wall. You will need the hardbound because of the additional information, but if your work requires you to do evaluations in a variety of settings, or even if you know you will be referring to it often and don't want to be bothered getting the big one off the shelf, definitely purchase this one as well. Kelly L. Norman, ACSW
Rating:
Summary: A Must-Have for Psychology Externs/Interns
Review: The Desk Reference to the DSM-IV TR is a small and portable reference book that is easy to carry and easy to comprehend. It is wonderful for psychology externs, interns, & residents who need quick access to DSM diagnoses. It was especially useful to me during the intake interviewing process to help with differential diagnosis. It provides concrete diagnostic criteria for each of the major mental disorders and incorporates the recent text revisions made by the American Psychiatric Association. Highly recommended to anyone in the psychiatric field!
Rating:
Summary: A Must-Have for Psychology Externs/Interns
Review: The Desk Reference to the DSM-IV TR is a small and portable reference book that is easy to carry and easy to comprehend. It is wonderful for psychology externs, interns, & residents who need quick access to DSM diagnoses. It was especially useful to me during the intake interviewing process to help with differential diagnosis. It provides concrete diagnostic criteria for each of the major mental disorders and incorporates the recent text revisions made by the American Psychiatric Association. Highly recommended to anyone in the psychiatric field!
Rating: 
Summary: Use DSM Jr. and leave your hefty DSM home on the bookshelf!
Review: The Quick Reference to the Diagnostic Criteria from DSM-IV-TR (aka DSM Jr.) is a welcome addition to the office, briefcase, or backpack of any mental health professional or student. The text presents only the most crucial information needed to make a diagnosis. Background information on each disorder, such as prevalence, course of the disorder, and pointers on differential diagnosis are eliminated in favor of being concise. Unfortunately, Appendix A, which contains the Decision Trees for Differential Diagnosis, is noticeably absent from the DSM Jr. Personally, I like having the assistance of a visual aid in the form of a forced choice flow chart when making a tough choice between similar diagnoses. The decision not to include Appendix A in the DSM Jr. is the sole reason why I can only give this text only 4 out of 5 stars. The process of editing the hefty 943 pages of the DSM-IV-TR and then transforming it into a svelte 370 page Quick Reference book is a tough job. However, the information contained in the often forgotten Appendix section can sometimes be more useful than some of the information found in the main body of the text.
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