November 12th 2024
Awais Aftab, MD, shares more on his upcoming book.
September 26th 2024
Review of Darryl Cunningham's Psychiatric Tales
November 17th 2010In this autobiographic work, Darryl Cunningham explains mental illness in a succinct and novel way. It is already proving to be of use to both health professionals and mental health service clients. Published in the UK this year, its US release is scheduled for February 2011.
Prime Time: Maximizing the Therapeutic Experience-A Primer for Psychiatric Clinicians
October 29th 2010The preface explains why Prime Time is so needed. It provides a refreshing, nonjudgmental summary of how and why we’ve arrived at the 20-minute hour. This is important for disgruntled clinicians from the “good old days” as well as for early-career clinicians who have not learned anything better.
Review – Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche
August 16th 2010This book aims to demonstrate how, regrettably, over the last twenty years or so, typically American conceptions of mental illness have been exported successfully to the rest of the world. According to Watters, the often enthusiastic international reception of DSM-III and IV has homogenized human suffering all over the world.
Widespread Zombification in the 21st Century and the Wars of the Zombie Masters:
August 12th 2010With this creative and engaging eBook, the author challenges young people to resist “zombification by the zombie masters”-or, becoming addicted (“zombified”) by the individuals and systems (“zombie masters”) that sell and deal drugs and benefit from the misfortune of others.
Handbook of Correctional Mental Health, Second Edition
August 12th 2010With the transition of patients with mental illness from the beds of psychiatric institutions into the community the need for knowledgeable mental health professionals continues to grow. Correctional psychiatry has evolved in recent years and presents special challenges for clinicians, which this handbook deftly addresses. Contributing authors with various backgrounds provide a broad range of expertise.
The Perplexing History of ECT in Three Books
August 12th 2010Despite these divergent books, it is important to avoid characterizing ECT as controversial. The Shorter-Healy and Dukakis books should dampen the controversy, because they characterize ECT as a safe, effective, and important treatment that psychiatry almost forgot. With its emotion-laden accusations and name-calling, the Andre book will inflame opinions.
Screening for Depression in Clinical Practice: An Evidence-Based Guide
August 5th 2010Screening for Depression in Clinical Practice, which reviews the current body of knowledge on mental health screening in the medical setting, is a reference text written primarily for the consultation-liaison specialist, but it will be of use to the general psychiatrist and the interested primary care physician or medical specialist.
The Rise and Fall of the Biopsychosocial Model
July 7th 2010Ultimately, Dr Ghaemi endorses a pluralistic approach and a “method-based psychiatry” in contrast to the eclecticism of the BPS. This method-based approach recognizes that one method may be more correct than others on the basis of empirical data and conceptual soundness (the “less is more” view), versus the BPS model, in which all methods can be equally correct (the “more is better” view).
A Clinician’s Guide to Statistics and Epidemiology in Mental Health: Measuring Truth and Uncertainty
April 7th 2010Is A Clinician’s Guide to Statistics and Epidemiology in Mental Health what we have been waiting for? Yes and no. It contains solid descriptions of concepts such as the P value and confidence intervals, and it has extensive discussions of the history of modern statistical methods. Perhaps its greatest strength involves critiques of the interpretations of several studies that have mistakenly become cornerstones of clinical lore.
Psychiatrist on the Road: Encounters in Healing and Healthcare
September 1st 2009After 18 years as a senior clinical psychiatrist at a New England inner-city mental health clinic, Dr Lawrence Climo was understandably surprised and saddened when he was given 2 weeks’ notice that his services were no longer needed. Financial constraints meant the clinic was replacing him with a nurse. Although his wife told him it was an opportunity, he remembers thinking that health care reform made him feel that his professional skills were “almost irrelevant or at least unmarketable.”
Textbook of Violence Assessment and Management
June 5th 2009The foreword to the Textbook of Violence Assessment and Management promptly reminds readers that the mental health system has been invested in the prediction and prevention of violence since its inception. In a field dedicated to promoting wellness via the management of cognition, emotion, and behavior, violent thoughts, feelings, and actions are of primary concern. When psychiatric illness or psychological distress manifests as violence, the costs in terms of human suffering are extreme, wreaking havoc in the lives of patients, clinicians, and society at large-often with irreversible consequences.
Woody Allen and Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona
May 8th 2009For Allen, that film was the measure of Bergman’s genius, and it reached aesthetic heights that he conceded his own films would never attain. Bergman, like his Knight, Allen observed, could not put off the ultimate checkmate nor would his great art secure for him a personal afterlife as intellectuals wanted to believe. Allen was sure that Bergman would barter each great film he had made for another year of life so he could go on making films.