Psychiatry

Rating:
Summary: Necessary but not sufficient
Review: I use this text in my first-year psychiatric medicine course at Columbia University. We have the benefit there of being taught by both of the authors of this book, and I can say they are both fine doctors and fine teachers. Whether they are fine authors...well...that's less certain.

This text is a good, not too wordy, and well-organized text of psychiatric illnesses and treatments. The text contains, clearly stated in little sidebars, DSM-IV diagnostic criteria and has all important terminology in bold within the body of the text. This is helpful and facilitates skimming, which unfortunately this text encourages. The writing is fairly dry and, while it is filled with case studies and examples, it is the nature of psychaitry that no two cases are the same--even more so than medicine, since diagnoses are made solely based on a constellation of symptoms rather than a test or two or three. Thus the case studies, while fun to read, are not too helpful in what amounts to memorization of the diagnostic criteria.

Additionally, there are many questions, mostly relating to the neurobiology of these illnesses, that this book does not address. This is partly due to its publication date--1999, which is positivley ancient in a field as quickly evolving as neurobiology. But even in spite of that, it does not address etiology and causes as much as one might like.

For what it is, a required textbook that explains the symptomatology and treatment of psychiatric illnesses, it does a decent, if dry and wordy, job. But for any but the most cursory of interests in the subject area, it does not suffice and more reading is a good idea.