Substantially revised to include a wealth of new material, the second edition of this highly acclaimed work provides a concise, coherent introduction that brings structure to an increasingly fragmented and amorphous discipline. Paul R. McHugh and Phillip R. Slavney offer an approach that emphasizes psychiatry's unifying concepts while accommodating its diversity. Recognizing that there may never be a single, all-encompassing theory, the book distills psychiatric practice into four explanatory methods: diseases, dimensions of personality, goal-directed behaviors, and life stories. These perspectives, argue the authors, underlie the principles and practice of all psychiatry. With an understanding of these fundamental methods, readers will be equipped to organize and evaluate psychiatric information and to develop a confident approach to practice and research. Reviews: I know many physicians who would like their own liaison psychiatrist in their pocket (in more ways than one). Those who work at Johns Hopkins now have just that. This book comprises the portable advice of the Johns Hopkins Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine to help physicians with some of the commonest psychiatric issues they encounter. —Eleanor Feldman, Psychological Medicine A very informative text that does an excellent job of introducing to some and presenting to others effective approaches to psychiatric and neurological symptoms . . . Provides practical, time friendly, concepts that would be usable after only the first read. —M. Ojinga Harrison, M.D., Journal of Psychosomatic Research About the Authors: Paul R. McHugh, M.D., is the Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, the former director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the coauthor of The Perspectives of Psychiatry, also available from Johns Hopkins. He was selected by President George W. Bush to sit on the Presidential Council on Bioethics and by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to be on their National Review Board for the elimination of the sexual abuse of children by clergy. Phillip R. Slavney, M.D., is the Eugene Meyer III Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the author of Psychiatric Dimensions of Medical Practice, coeditor of The Primary Care Physician's Guide to Common Psychiatric and Neurologic Problems, and coauthor of The Perspectives of Psychiatry, all available from Johns Hopkins. |