An introduction for residents and new psychiatrists who work with patients.

Covering the major psychiatric disorders encountered in consultation psychiatry, this text discusses when a psychiatric consultation is necessary, how to approach a patient in a medical setting and what qualities contribute to an effective consultant.

This concise, yet comprehensive guide distills the most critical and current information on diagnosis and treatment so that residents and other beginning clinicians will have the tools they need to quickly assess and competently treat patients with psychiatric illnesses. Replete with diagnostic evaluation checklists, DSM-IV-TR criteria, and drug dosage tables, the Resident's Guide to Clinical Psychiatry is a practical and convenient one-stop resource that will make the resident's job significantly easier. Each of the 16 chapters has been structured logically and with the utmost care to guide residents through the psychiatric landscape. For example, the chapter on pharmacotherapy is organized by class of drug, with sections on mechanism of action, indications and efficacy, and tips for medication selection. This is followed by detailed information on specific drugs -- their clinical use, risks, side effects, management, and potential interactions. This depth of coverage is matched by breadth of subject, with chapters on central topics such as mood disorders and dementia, in addition to special chapters on consultation-liaison psychiatry, emergency psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, and electroconvulsive therapy and device-based treatments. Whether employed as a text or an on-the-fly reference, this authoritative volume supplies everything the resident requires to provide a uniformly high level of psychiatric clinical care.

This book is primarily intended to provide guidance on mental illness to medical students and doctors who are not specialist psychiatrists. It consists of short descriptions of mental health problems that are frequently encountered in day-to-day clinical practice, and each problem is dealt with lucidly. Written by two dedicated and experienced academic psychiatrists, the chapters are logically structured, well illustrated and include a wealth of useful tips. The focus, unlike many other textbooks of psychiatry, is on management. In short, this is an excellent book giving practical advice that is based mainly on what medical students are taught in the ward. With the welcome trend in most medical schools to include psychiatry as a separate subject in the final year and assess it at the final MBBS examination, this is a timely and useful addition to the available textbooks on psychiatry, both for the students and their teachers. Prof H. Janaka de SilvaSenior Professor and Chair of Medicine, and former DeanFaculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Ragama, Sri Lanka andFormer Director, Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, Colombo, Sri Lanka and Former Chairman, National Research Council, Sri Lanka

Disability evaluations are the most common clinical mental health evaluations conducted for nontreatment purposes. They place mental health professionals in the role of communicating information that is typically confidential to administrative and legal systems. Unfortunately, mental health professionals receive little to no training in conducting assessments that focus on disability and disability management, and often do not understand the implications and risks of providing this information, especially without conducting what are often specialized evaluations. Clinical Guide to Mental Health Disability Evaluations is geared for general mental health practitioners, providing them with the basic information needed to competently provide the various types of disability evaluations. It also provides enough information to inform forensic mental health providers in conducting more specialized evaluations.

The Mental Health Professional in Court: A Survival Guide is designed to help mental health professionals become more knowledgeable about the settings, assumptions, personnel, issues, and techniques involved in going to court, with the aim of demystifying the legal process and reducing anxiety about this inherently stressful experience. A revised and expanded version of The Psychiatrist in Court: A Survival Guide, published more than 10 years ago, this volume was written with three goals in mind: to soothe, support, and educate through use of an informal and at times even lighthearted tone; to offer a consistent focus on practical rather than theoretical issues; and to present the necessary material succinctly and efficiently so that readers can assimilate it quickly and under pressure of an impending court appearance. The book puts the topic in context by presenting the basics of the legal process and roles, then follows the chronology of responding to a subpoena, determining the kind of witness the reader may be asked to be, working with an attorney, preparing for a courtroom appearance, and identifying specific strategies for testifying. Well-written, astute, and supportive, this is the book mental health professionals should rely on when facing this potentially unnerving challenge.

Even though mental illnesses are common and cause great suffering in every part of the world, many health workers have a limited understanding about mental health and are less comfortable dealing with mental illness. This book is a practical manual for mental health care for the community health worker, the primary care nurse, the social worker and the primary care doctor, particularly in developing countries. After giving the reader a basic understanding of mental illness, the book goes on to describe more than 30 clinical problems associated with mental illness and uses a problem-solving approach to guide the reader through their assessment and management. Mental health issues as they arise in specific health care contexts are described, for example in a refugee camp, a school health programme or with people suffering from AIDS, as well as in mental health promotion. The final section combines quick reference information for common problems and it also includes chapters for the reader to personalise the manual for a particular location, for example, by entering local information on voluntary agencies, the names and costs of medicines and words in the local language for emotional symptoms.