Film and Book Reviews

Borderline Personality Disorder: New Reasons for Hope is one in a series being published by Johns Hopkins University Press on major psychiatric disorders.

David Cronenberg’s film "A Dangerous Method" tells the story of the relationship between Freud and Jung and a woman named Sabina who had a considerable influence on both of them.

Structured around fictional case vignettes, this book presents the different pathways through which one enters the mental health system. Patients can better judge whether they are being offered the optimal treatment modality and can more effectively assess the stylistic match between themselves and their therapist.

Mostly prose with effective inclusion of poetry, author Jill Bialosky adds an important survivor’s perspective in her book of her sister's suicide. To clinicians in particular, the book may serve as a window into the psychic lives of those left behind following a tragic end.

Although memoirs have become all the rage, they are rarely written by anyone in the field of psychiatry . . . and for good reason.

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is not easy entertainment, but for psychiatrists who might welcome an encounter with a brilliant, uncompromising mind, The Tree of Life is enthralling.

From my standpoint as the author of Unhinged, Dr Haldipur’s review is both good news and bad news.

Unhinged is one of many books published in the past few years critical of psychiatry. A book of scandals and debates, and a polemic of sorts-a “trahison des clercs”-rather than an intellectual discussion about psychiatry. Therein lies the trouble with psychiatry.

Talking to Families About Mental Illness aims to help primary care providers who want to offer family psychoeducation. This book targets non-psychiatrists who diagnose and treat mental illnesses.

If you’ve ever wondered what psychoanalytic treatments are like, The King’s Speech provides an unusually good cinematic representation of a psychoanalytic therapy.

See if you can tell if the following quote comes from religious wisdom or a CBT therapist: “To defeat depression, you must introduce a fresh perspective to your thinking. You must begin to replace troubling, destructive thoughts with positive, constructive ones.” To this, we say, “Amen.”

I would recommend it for medical students who have been thrust into the role of primary decision maker for their patients, and clinicians who would appreciate a pocket supervisor to help them make treatment decisions.

The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head will appeal to lay readers who like to solve puzzles, as well as to seasoned clinicians who will be challenged by its wide array of intricate cases.

ECT is making something of a comeback because it remains a paragon of efficacy amidst other relatively disappointing treatments.

For those of us who treat seriously emotionally disturbed children, We’ve Got Issues is a welcome change from the invectives of those who believe that the use psychotropic medication is virtually criminal.

What Works for Psychiatrists in Community and Institutional Settings

This book is recommended for therapy trainees who are interested in relational psychodynamic approaches and concerned with putting these seemingly abstract concepts into “real world” practice.

As expected from an Oxbridge graduate, author Catharine Arnold’s Bedlam: London and Its Mad is a well-written and very readable book. “This book is for all whose lives are touched by madness” is a laudable objective.

I believe this book will serve as an invaluable resource for all students of psychodynamic theory as well as their teachers-and I would venture to say that this magisterial text is destined to become a classic.

This 3-part manual on sexual disorders is edited by 2 psychiatrists who have been engaged for more than 20 years in clinical treatment of patients with sexual problems.

In 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.

The 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.

It is well known that black people, compared to white people, are much more likely to be diagnosed as suffering from ‘schizophrenia’ if they are seen at psychiatric units in the UK or USA. .

This 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.

With 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.

With 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.

Despite 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, 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.

Ultimately, 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).

The White Ribbon is an instant classic of European cinema. Filmed in black and white and set in a rural village in northern Germany circa 1912, it may remind you of early Bergman, Buñuel, and other great European filmmakers of the black-and-white era, but it is an homage to none of them.