The American Psychiatric Association Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry

Book excerpt: The American Psychiatric Association Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry, first published more than 30 years ago, is a landmark text with a legacy of sound scholarship, expert knowledge, and effective pedagogy. Thoroughly revised and featuring new authors and content, the seventh edition raises the bar, adding age-related, cultural, societal, and population considerations in the practice of psychiatry to the authoritative text that generations of students, residents, and clinicians have heretofore relied upon. The book first focuses on foundational knowledge, with chapters on psychiatric interviewing, diagnostic formulation, developmental assessment, laboratory testing and neuroimaging, and ethical and legal aspects of clinical psychiatry, and then proceeds to a full presentation of psychiatric disorders in alignment with DSM-5. The third section offers an overview of treatment strategies and methods in present-day psychiatry, a combination of evidence-based biological interventions and psychotherapies, and gives a clear sense of exciting new directions in psychiatric therapeutics. The final section of the textbook is focused on the care of special patient populations, including women; children and adolescents; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals; older adults; and culturally diverse individuals. Many topics are new to this volume, including the following: Suicide risk assessment, a critically important subject, is addressed in a new chapter that provides the reader with up-to-date knowledge needed to conduct a thorough, attuned, and accurate psychiatric interview in line with best practices. A new chapter on the social determinants of mental health has been added, reflecting an increased emphasis on populations whose specific concerns have been historically underappreciated in American psychiatry, and illuminating factors that influence mental health needs and barriers to care in specific patient populations. Precision psychiatry, an integrative approach that pulls together the scientific foundation of the discipline and recent technological advances and directs them toward closing the gap between discovery and clinical translation, is explored in a new chapter. E-health strategies in mental health have become increasingly available to psychiatrists and other health professionals, especially in the mobile and monitoring spheres. A new chapter offers insights into these intriguing new options for delivering treatment. A chapter on complementary and integrative therapies explores the integration of conventional medicine with alternative treatments for which there is an evidence base, providing an overview of nutrients, phytomedicines, hormones, mind--body practices, and electromagnetic treatments. With features such as key clinical points and recommended readings for further study, The American Psychiatric Association Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry is a comprehensive course book, an indispensable reference, and the ultimate resource for clinical care.