Best Books on Psychiatry and Pharmacology for a Layperson

[Plexus_Nexus]

I'm a little shy to be posting here as I'm not a psychology student and have a poor scientific background, but I was recommended to this forum from another site.

I'm looking for a good book/textbook on psychiatry and pharmacological treatment of mental disorders. This desire stems from a general frustration I've had of the apparent inability for my psychiatrists to explain in non-vague, non-overly-simplified terms what the hell is going on in my brain. I know and have heard the "we don't know much about mental disorders and the brain" bit, but presumably if there are a lot of people getting their doctorate in this stuff, and there are expensive studies being performed, we know at least something.

I would like to read something comprehensive, but relatively entry-level. I'm not well versed in biology or chemistry, but I can do extra reading to fill any epistemic gaps. I'm not looking for a book on psychotherapy.

My background is in analytic philosophy, so I am familiar with some of the fundamental scientific/ontological problems related to the mind/brain distinction and how it might relate to mental illness. If the text book authors of said hypothetical textbook were fairly well trained to think about the ontological implications of modern psychiatric theories, as well as problems of reductionism in bridging the biology/chemistry gap, that would be awesome, but I can always supplement my reading in regards to this as well.

Are there any good text books out there that I could read? Thanks a lot for any help!!

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[Nahsil]

My background is in analytic philosophy, so I am familiar with some of the fundamental scientific/ontological problems related to the mind/brain distinction and how it might relate to mental illness. If the text book authors of said hypothetical textbook were fairly well trained to think about the ontological implications of modern psychiatric theories, as well as problems of reductionism in bridging the biology/chemistry gap, that would be awesome, but I can always supplement my reading in regards to this as well.

Good luck finding that (I'm studying philosophical psychology, more phenomenological/continental though)

Sorry I'm not more help, just felt like being snarky. Mainstream psychology isn't very philosophically explicated unfortunately.

 

[smalltownpsych]

To really begin understanding how these drugs work and also why they don't you have to understand some basic neurobiology. Most intro to pysch textbooks have a decent chapter on that.