DSM Reviews

This book provides a practical explanation of the "DSM-IV" that will appeal to anyone who wants a thorough, simplified description of this complex book. I'm only giving it four stars because I don't think it provides an explanation of the latest changes made in the "DSM-IV-TR". The book will nonetheless appeal to nearly anyone seeking to improve their grasp of psychiatry, not just psychiatrists in training. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

I do not know how I would have gotten through my first experience having to use the DSM as a diagnostic tool for my graduate work in psychopathology without this book. I used it to work up all my case presentations, and they were always accurate. Thank you, James Morrison!

This book summarizes the major taxonomies of the DSM-IV, and includes scenarios illustrating most of the major categories and sub-pathologies. Unlike the standard texts which seems to have been developed by a group of obsessive compulsive personalities or, as a character in a recent play claims, "a coven," this one has some humanity to it, and it's even funny at times. If you're a student it may also reduce physical disorders such as aching backs, and dislocated shoulders which the original may cause if you have to lug it around your university. Did the original text creators ever consider this? It also has a nicer cover. It also may save you money since the DSM-V is no doubt lurking on the horizon, not having been revised for 8 years or so.

This is a excellent resource for the special education teacher. The information given in this book helps decipher many terms used in psychiatric evaluation of students with special needs. This is definitely a valuable tool for anyone working in Special Education.

Alvin House incorporates some true wisdom into this reference. Indeed they are in my opinion bits of details that are either not taught in grad schools or not emphasized in training people to work with school populations. As opposed to adults, he points up, children's diagnoses are fluid and evolving- there are, if we are effectively treating the conditions, more opportunities to bypass chronicity and co-morbid patterns. Less matching symptom to condition to diagnosis. (Another reason, for the No Child Left Behind Folks- to re-evaluate frequently- not, as they would have, to eliminate the need for the 3 year requirement.) Furthermore, he warns of a real personal irritant, and that is NOT TO TAKE KIDS AT THEIR WORD, when discussing their emotions and their reactions to their world. He puts it better than anyone I've ever heard when he says that when you're ruling out mental illness, depression, anxiety, etc. remember, "Kids walk the walk, they don't talk the talk!." You need to use collateral information, observation, medical reports, etc. Some other gems-Always be careful with a personality diagnosis and never diagnose when the youngster is in the throes of an acute mood disorder, depressive reaction, adjustment,etc.
The integration of the revised manual with the latest IDEA interpretations is the best that I have found. Read the complicated but controversial 'label' and 'classification' debacle for Social Maladjustment and/ or Disruptive Behaviors. The former does not qualify for an IEP but the latter as a condition of ADD and many others- does. Look out as well for the changes relative to those and the politicized furor over discipline in special education. If an eligible child misbehaves as a result of his disability- technically, that child should not be excluded or otherwise consequenced. They are moving to amend that- truth be told, nobody upholds it anyway- but it can always lead to litigation. I encourage people to remain abreast of those IDEA revisions as well as the ramifications of erring on the diagnosis- high stakes- for the child, and for you.
Other updates are more about spectrum disorders, clustering of symptoms and, the diagnosis of conduct disorder- which I understood was no longer to be given to anyone under 18. Any of the disruptive, (externalizing) behaviors - You get my drift- dx's- should be evaluated as to if they are a result of environmental malignancy, (Like that?) or the neuropsychiatric composition of the child. Nature vs. Nurture.
The weakness in this and every resource I have checked is in the Learning Disorders. I cannot tell you how many people are wandering around shaking their head over the Disorder of Written Expression DX. Kids who write get it. Kids who comprehend get it. Kids who can write lousy but can write get it- then those kids get accused of laziness and as one mom put it, "Is my son using his IEP as a crutch?" He covers the changes in PDD, Tics as they are either involuntary muscular movements or if they fall within the category of inappropriate and malignant movements of autism. Difference? The latter are used pathologically to interfere with healthy coping adjustment. (Why ya gotta stay current!)

All in all, I'm pleased that this is available for school personnel. The previous reviewer mentioned special education teachers should read it. Here Here! And their supervisors. This is a sensitive and thorough volume. It is refreshing for its insights about the need for certain approaches, to kids, and moreover- to kids in school. He advocates a differential diagnosis and checklists and other interviews. It is a great thing to own and a great thing to have in the sites.

This is a well organized, clearly written text that takes the reader step by step through the DSM-IV process. It presents a strong rationale for the use of the DSM-IV in schools and points to the importance of developing a clinical perspective within the field of school psychology. This is a wonderful text. It should be required for all school psychology students.

It's small enough to toss into a briefcase or purse. It lies flat on my desk, making it easier to use. Has all the diagnostic criteria, and the basics of a five axis diagnosis. Includes basic GAF info. Index. All I ever need to know from the DSM I find in here.

Unless you have a good reason (you're enrolled in a psychopathology class) to use the full-up DSM-IV, do yourself and your muscles a favor and get this one.

(If you'd like to comment on this review, click on the "about me" link above & drop me an email. Thanks!)

I finally broke down and purchased this handy little reference book. I have the large hardcover DSMIV and finally had to stop hauling it between offices. This little gem fits in my Day Timer. It is always within reach. A must have if you have to diagnose for insurance, mental health agencies, or EAPS. No more wondering where the Big Book is (in my car, other office, or home). Once another therapist borrowed it for a week without letting me know. No need to spend Big Book prices either. Please note that you still need access to the Big DSMIV for more detail than this Quick Reference offers.

Un libro basico para picologos

LO ENCUENTRO BASTANTE INTERESANTE. ES LO ULTIMO EN DIAGNOSTICO DE LOS DESORDENES MENTALES. HAY GL0SARIOS QUE HACEN QUE LA LECTURA SEA MAS FLUIDA. HAY ALGUNOS EJEMPLOS QUE AYUDAN A ENTENDER MEJOR CADA DESORDEN. ME ESTA AYUDANDO MUCHO PARA MI CERTIFICACION COMO CONSEJERO DE ABUSO DE SUBSTANCIAS.

While listing the criteria for the various disorders, the case studies and vignettes provide valuable insight into the diagnostic process. The section on " common mistakes in diagnosis" allow the reader to better understand the application of the criteria. Would highly recommend this book to those who are relatively new in the field and are looking for more clinical applications of the DSM-IV categories.

Excellent book for a beginner Psychiatry resident. Walks you trough the DSM-IV in a very logical, sequential manner. You will learn how and when use specifiers. The case-scenarios are a plus. After reading this book it is very easy to memorize the DSM -IV criteria. Very easy to read.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV referring to the 4th edition) is often called "the psychiatrist's bible." Like a certain other Bible, DSM-IV is not holy writ (and indeed, in the introduction it explicitly states that the criteria contained therein are intended to be used only as guidelines), but it does provide an interesting look at Western culture. The evolution of the DSM has been fascinating, and I'm sure that when the next edition comes out, those of us who weren't involved in the writing will look upon the changes with curiosity and interest. (Those who were involved in the construction of this book may no longer be on speaking terms! It's an incredibly political undertaking, and I admire them for having the courage and the persistence to carry it through.)

Some of the disorders defined in DSM-IV, such as the Substance-Related Disorders and the relatively new diagnosis of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, bear a razor! -sharp specificity and resemblance to reality. The well-established Psychotic Disorders, often considered the most severe type of mental illness, and the Mood and Personality Disorders, which the meat and potatoes of psychiatry, will no doubt continue to evolve, and I will look forward to seeing the next edition of this exciting book.

Not to be missed are the delightful appendices, which include such gems as the Defensive Functioning Scale and a number of tentative "investigational criteria sets - descriptions of disorders which are not presently diagnosed (officially) but which may be in the future.

The DSM-IV has taken its share of knocks recently, perhapsmost powerfully from Herb Kutchins, and Stuart A. Kirk in Making UsCrazy : DSM : The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders (Free Press, 1997). Yet virtually nobody involved in any of the helping/human service professions can afford to practice without the DSM-IV, or one of its spin-offs, on his or her desk. It is rumored that lawyers have bought more copies than psychiatrists, but the American Psychiatric Press isn't telling. Full of flaws, contradictions, and sheer nonsensicalities, the DSM-IV nonetheless stands as the best the scientific world has devised in describing and diagnosing mental illnesses.

People who don't believe in mental illness, who think most psychiatrists are stranger than their patients, or who think that meditation, oriental massage, or past life regression are all the solutions we need to human problems will find no comfort in the DSM-IV. Neither will those who don't consider a science to be real unless its state of development permits its concepts to be expressed in equations rather than mere language. But in a world full of nervous, despondent, deluded, nasty, selfish, withdrawn, and otherwise troubled and troublesome folks, the DSM-IV, imperfect as are the people it describes and who compiled it, is the best guide we have in trying to make sense of it all.

^M^MA 14 year old boy is depressed. Is it just a phase, or is it serious enough to require medication to prevent his suicide? A 57 year old woman starts believing that her neighbors are pumping poison gas into her apartment. Does she need a gas mask, reassurance, brain surgery, or Prozac? A 30 year old woman is fondled in a supermarket and wants five million dollars from the store's owners for the emotional suffering she will experience for the rest of her life. Is she re-experiencing traumatic episodes of childhood abuse or is she a swindler? Stunningly important questions, all. Do we have perfect answers? No way. But do we need help in grappling with them? We sure do.

^M^MThe DSM-IV is powerfully political, full of bad science, and is probably over-valued in every setting in which it isused. Yet it represents the best summary of the work of thousands of people, all struggling to solve some of the most crucial problems we face in medicine, psychology, law, and social welfare. We need the DSM-IV critics, but we also need the DSM-IV.

The "bible" of mental health diagnosis, it is a must have for those pursuing a career in any mental health specialty. Clearly describes the criteria for diagnosis. Provides better understanding of the line between certain mental illness

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.

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.

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

I felt that this little pocket guide was really easy to read and helpful, especially when I needed to specify questions for certain interviewing sessions with clients. I would recommend it to anyone who needs a little extra help with difficult clients. Great for Students!

This is a highly practical reminder book for conducting mental illness diagnosis interviews. It is well-written and well-organized. Probably will be most useful for medical students and psychiatry residents, but may also help young and possibly even experienced psychiatrists. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

This interview guide is the perfect companion to the novice practitioner. Zimmerman has condensed the interview sequence of the major disorders so that you can logically follow, and intentionally interview a client.

This book is a little pricey for its size, but the content is A-1.

The text-revised version is virtually identical to the 1994 version of the DSM-IV and not worth buying if you have the 1994 version. Along with the DSM-IV, the DSM-IV Text Revised version is, however, an informative book that provides good introductory information, especially in the "Diagnostic Features" section, about a wide variety of mental disorders. A problem of the manual, in my opinion, is its use of a categorical classification system while ignoring the dimensional nature of psychological phenomena.

Lee J. Markowitz, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)

I am pleased that postpartum psychosis has been dropped as a separate entry in the DSM IV TR. Postpartum is now correctly classified as a General Medical Condition. These changes call for the diagnostician to classify an afflicted mother by a disorder for which there is information more readily available, such as schizophrenia. In the case of a schizophrenic disorder, the mother is no more a danger to others (including the infant, I would infer) than those in the general population (p. 304). Therefore, mental health care providers have no basis to keep a mother separated from her infant any more than any normal parent. The manual is a useful tool for the afflicted to use for self-discovery, especially when there is mistrust, denial, anger, and agitation toward mental health care providers. The manual can literally put the afflicted and the provider "on the same page." It is well worth the investment in this book, a highlighter marker, and a therapy session to mark up and discuss the book.

Now I understand everyone around me. Whenever somebody says something I don't like, I can usually determine that they have some kind of disorder. It really puts people in their place.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)--the psychiatrists' reference on what diseases are out there and what drugs are used to treat them -- is complete fiction. Psychiatric "diseases" are VOTED into existence by a panel of about 1000 members of the "Mental Health Industry", and when these "diseases" win the vote and are included in the next edition of the DSM, they become by that fact "real". I would suggest that any person about to have a diagnosis rendered upon them through the use of DSM IV and who is concerned about their rights to disagree should contact attorney Skip Simpson of Dallas, Texas.

DSM-IV is a manual for use by mental health professionals so that there is uniformity in diagnosis and basis for future research. Each diagnosis has been subject to extensive research. DSM-IV only describes symptoms and does not discuss causes for disorders. I would agree with the other reader that I would like to see diagnosis related to anger disorders appearing in future editions. Because there is political concern about anger disorders being used as criminal defenses, the mental health community has been somewhat reluctant to formalize diagnosis in this area. I feel, however, this is important so that the mental health community can be more active in reasearch on anger disorders to provide more effective treatment in this area.

As a clinical psycholgist, professor, and author I have found DSM to be useful. It is not useful to laypersons and is not a self-help manual. It lists over 200 different kinds of problems-in-living, some severe (schizophrenia) and some not severe (bedwetting). These problems- in-living are called "disorders" if they cause significant emotional distress or significant social or vocational impairment. Some of these disorders people accidentally bring on themselves (substance abuse) and some disorders cause severe problems to others (e.g., intermittent explosive disorder or borderline personality disorder). I closely followed the depressive disorders and anxiety disorders in DSM IV when I wrote a self-help book, "SOS Help For Emotions: Managing Anxiety, Anger, And Depression." DSM IV needs to acknowledge and list "anger disorders" (which it does not do) as these problems are causing severe problems and misery in our families and society, as well as in the persons having anger disorders. I have used DSM (in all of its editions)for over 38 years. Both of the prior customers have made some valid points.