general reads

[randomdoc1]

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Out in practice now about several years. Other than DSM V, what are some other good core books to read, especially as newer editions are published since DSM V. I'm talking like, good books for residents about pathophysiology, the various major diagnoses, natural history, etc. Just trying to stay up to date as a general psychiatrist out there.

Also, what about a textbook for general bread and butter outpatient pharmacology? I like reading books from start to end. Don't see too many chronically mentally ill like schizophrenia or case management type situations. My population is middle to upper class and high functioning. But I'd like to know enough up to date material about psychosis and bipolar as well it does show up occasionally in this population.

I don't want to develop into the PP psychiatrist who starts calling high functioning borderline patients as bipolar, or benzo-ing the life out of every first world problem. lol.

Thanks!!

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

I know I'm ripping on Carlat in the other thread but the Medication Fact Book for Psychiatric Practice is something I'd reference all the time in fellowship and still have on the bookshelf (along with a child specific psychopharmacology book).

Stahl's Prescriber's Guide is interesting and has a lot of info but I'd take some of his statements about efficacy for particular disorders or not with a grain of salt. Stahl gets a TON of pharmaceutical industry money and isn't very upfront about this in the books.

Dollars for Docs

ProPublica has compiled the disclosed payments from pharma companies to doctors and other health care providers. Search for your doctor in our interactive database.

projects.propublica.org

 

[the5thelement]

"Masquerdaing symptoms" - a good book to keep in mind as we are physicians first.
Amazon product ASIN 0470890657

 

[annoyedpsychiatrist]

The maudsley prescribing guidelines would be my favorite psyh pharm book.

Ive read through about half of kaplan and saddock and found it to be decent for an overview but not much more than a general overview

 

[clozareal]

Well it's the DSM-5-TR now but there wasn't many changes in it. Severity criteria for mania, prolonged grief disorder, hikikomori in the cultural concepts of distress, among others.

Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines is my go to read

Managing Side Effects of Psychotropic Medications (concise) or Medical Management of Psychotropic Side effects (more thorough). I'm a big proponent of being able to manage the side effects from our medications. Many of my patients won't go to PCP or specialist when I refer them, unfortunately, unless its dire.

Mass Gen Hospital Comprehensive Clinical Psychiatry

Neuropsych: Fish's Clinical Psyhophathology, Lishman Organic Psychiatry

ADHD by James McGough

Borderline Personality Disorder by Gunderson

In addition to Masquerading Symptoms, I also like Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes and Troublesome Disguises. You can't make a rare diagnosis if you don't know what to look for.

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I don't like Kaplan & Saddock. Feels like a paraphrased DSM.

Labbate used to be popular and still has some good pearls about older drugs that are less commonly used now: MAO-Is, benzos, TCAs

The APA Textbook on Psychopharmacology has pharmacokinetics/dynamics that are really thorough that I sometimes like but it's not a practical read for what to do in clinical practice

 

[annoyedpsychiatrist]

Well it's the DSM-5-TR now but there wasn't many changes in it. Severity criteria for mania, prolonged grief disorder, hikikomori in the cultural concepts of distress, among others.

Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines is my go to read

Managing Side Effects of Psychotropic Medications (concise) or Medical Management of Psychotropic Side effects (more thorough). I'm a big proponent of being able to manage the side effects from our medications. Many of my patients won't go to PCP or specialist when I refer them, unfortunately, unless its dire.

Mass Gen Hospital Comprehensive Clinical Psychiatry

Neuropsych: Fish's Clinical Psyhophathology, Lishman Organic Psychiatry

ADHD by James McGough

Borderline Personality Disorder by Gunderson

In addition to Masquerading Symptoms, I also like Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes and Troublesome Disguises. You can't make a rare diagnosis if you don't know what to look for.

---

I don't like Kaplan & Saddock. Feels like a paraphrased DSM.

Labbate used to be popular and still has some good pearls about older drugs that are less commonly used now: MAO-Is, benzos, TCAs

The APA Textbook on Psychopharmacology has pharmacokinetics/dynamics that are really thorough that I sometimes like but it's not a practical read for what to do in clinical practice

The ADHD one sounds interesting, havent seen that. Does it provide a lot of info on assessment/treatment? Looks relatively concise at 145 pages but a bit expensive on amazon

 

[clozareal]

The ADHD one sounds interesting, havent seen that. Does it provide a lot of info on assessment/treatment? Looks relatively concise at 145 pages but a bit expensive on amazon

I like the info on assessment/treatment that I haven't gotten elsewhere, like how to do a cardiac/family screen (see attached for a snippet of it). There's also a section discussing non-evidence based approaches to assessment and how these are not the gold standard of assessing (clinical diagnosis is), such as neuropsychological assessment, computerized assessment, EEG, brain imaging (SPECT), lab tests (ferritin?, lead?, thyroid? is there use in getting them?).

The treatment planning section is what i found most helpful. How do you start and titrate a stimulant? when to consider nonstimulant? how does management in adults differ from children? how do you manage comorbidities like if there's substance use or anxiety disorders? I love the section on medication controversies: do stimulants stunt growth? cause sudden death? cause birth defects? cause cancer? do people fake ADHD symptoms to get drugs? do they stop working and people build tolerance? The discussions here are worthwhile and worth the money.

 

[Stagg737]

In addition to Masquerading Symptoms, I also like Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes and Troublesome Disguises. You can't make a rare diagnosis if you don't know what to look for.

That you, Splik?

 

[splik]

For the practicing clinician, reading actual papers and clinical guidelines is a better way to keep up to date than reading books since these textbooks are out of date by the time they are published. However if you want some recommendations:

Textbooks
New Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry
The American textbooks are terrible, reflecting how intellectually barren and bereft of depth American psychiatry has been since the abandonment of psychoanalytic thinking. The Europeans have always had a much richer appreciation of the field which is reflected in this textbook (which does have some American authors). Goes into the psychopathology of the mental disorders, something that is conspicuous by its absence in the APPI and K&S Texts. Unlike most other oxford textbooks, this one is actually edited by the oxford school of psychiatry (with many chapters contributed by them). It is a bit heavy on biological aspects of psychiatry for my liking, but that is a reflection of the field in general. This recent edition is significantly truncated, reducing the previous two volume text into one volume. The resulting text loses much but is still better than the what else is available.

Textbook of Clinical Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience
The only psych textbook I own. This is the best neuropsychiatry textbook out there in my opinion and has lots of interesting (and random) information. You will learn a ton from skimming through its pages. You won't find le fou rire prodromique in other psychiatry textbooks that's for sure.

Diagnosis in Psychiatry

Manic Depressive Illness
Goodwin and Jamison's masterpiece still has much to offer 15 years after its second edition was published.

The Diagnosis of Psychosis
This short read gives a nice overview of the myriad of different conditions that can give rise to psychosis and expands on some of them in more depth. Covers the usual suspects like epilepsy, TBI, dementia, as well as the less common like Hallervorden–Spatz disease and Dentatorubropallidoluysian atrophy.

Goodwin's and Guze's Psychiatric Diagnosis
Heavily influenced by the WashU approach to psychiatric diagnosis (though no other institution except possibly Columbia has had such an enduring influence on psychiatric diagnosis and classification), it provides an historical overview of the common psychiatric diagnoses up to contemporary diagnosis, epidemiology, natural history, genetics, and complications.

DSM-5 Handbook of Differential Diagnosis
Provides an excellent overview of differential diagnosis in psychiatry within the framework of DSM-5 as well as decision trees for different clinical presentations. It does lack in the myriad of neuromedical illnesses that can present with psychiatric symptoms, but that is not the goal of the book.

Neuroscience in Psychiatry
Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience: A Primer
Provides a basic overview of systems neuroscience and intrinsic connectivity networks and how they (can) relate to psychiatric disorders.

The Neuroscience of Clinical Psychiatry
This is the best textbook on neuroscience in psychiatry. Covers the neuroscience of pain, pleasure, sleep, sex, social attachment, anger and aggression, memory, intelligence and attention and the disorders that can emerge when these go awry. It's an interesting way of thinking about psychiatric disorders from a neuroscience perspective

Psychopharmacology

The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines
As already mentioned, this is the most practically useful psychopharm book out there. If there is one psychopharm book to have this is it. Focuses more on the what and how and in whom to prescribe rather than the basic pharmacology of psychiatric drugs. It is a UK book (from the Maudsley Hospital as the name suggests) so some of the drugs don't exist here or the dosing is different (e.g. 400mg increments of lithium rather than 300).

Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology
This provides a good overview of the common classes of drugs and their chemical structure, effects, indications, dosing, adverse effects, contraindications, interactions, toxicity and discontinuation. Subsequent editions have sadly cut down on older drugs (e.g. typical antipsychotics, barbiturates) to make space for newer drugs

Clinical Psychopharmacology: Principles and Practice
This book is quite opinionated from Nassir Ghaemi, but the result is a very readable and impressive single author text from one of the master psychopharmacologists which covers some history, basic pharmacology and neuroscience, clinical epidemiology and study design, drug classes, pharmacotherapy of different disorders, and a very interesting section on the "art" of psychopharmacology. Even the appendix has some interesting thoughts of the "bipolar or borderline?" debate (which I don't entirely agree with but nice to see it discussed) and adult ADHD with Ghaemi concluding "the best evidence that adult ADD is not likely to be a valid independent disease entity is that it almost always occurs with mood illnesses,which themselves cause inattention." Which may reflect his own biases but still recommend perusing.

Psychodynamic Psychopharmacology: Caring for the Treatment-Resistant Patient
Considering the relational aspects of the healing environment, the meaning of medication, and patient's ambivalence, transference, recognizing countertransference and being mindful of countertherapeutic uses of drugs is essential to sensible and effective prescribing in psychiatry. I think there are a lot of useful ideas here.

 

[clozareal]

For the practicing clinician, reading actual papers and clinical guidelines is a better way to keep up to date than reading books since these textbooks are out of date by the time they are published. However if you want some recommendations:

Textbooks
New Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry
The American textbooks are terrible, reflecting how intellectually barren and bereft of depth American psychiatry has been since the abandonment of psychoanalytic thinking. The Europeans have always had a much richer appreciation of the field which is reflected in this textbook (which does have some American authors). Goes into the psychopathology of the mental disorders, something that is conspicuous by its absence in the APPI and K&S Texts. Unlike most other oxford textbooks, this one is actually edited by the oxford school of psychiatry (with many chapters contributed by them). It is a bit heavy on biological aspects of psychiatry for my liking, but that is a reflection of the field in general. This recent edition is significantly truncated, reducing the previous two volume text into one volume. The resulting text loses much but is still better than the what else is available.

Textbook of Clinical Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience
The only psych textbook I own. This is the best neuropsychiatry textbook out there in my opinion and has lots of interesting (and random) information. You will learn a ton from skimming through its pages. You won't find le fou rire prodromique in other psychiatry textbooks that's for sure.

Diagnosis in Psychiatry

Manic Depressive Illness
Goodwin and Jamison's masterpiece still has much to offer 15 years after its second edition was published.

The Diagnosis of Psychosis
This short read gives a nice overview of the myriad of different conditions that can give rise to psychosis and expands on some of them in more depth. Covers the usual suspects like epilepsy, TBI, dementia, as well as the less common like Hallervorden–Spatz disease and Dentatorubropallidoluysian atrophy.

Goodwin's and Guze's Psychiatric Diagnosis
Heavily influenced by the WashU approach to psychiatric diagnosis (though no other institution except possibly Columbia has had such an enduring influence on psychiatric diagnosis and classification), it provides an historical overview of the common psychiatric diagnoses up to contemporary diagnosis, epidemiology, natural history, genetics, and complications.

DSM-5 Handbook of Differential Diagnosis
Provides an excellent overview of differential diagnosis in psychiatry within the framework of DSM-5 as well as decision trees for different clinical presentations. It does lack in the myriad of neuromedical illnesses that can present with psychiatric symptoms, but that is not the goal of the book.

Neuroscience in Psychiatry
Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience: A Primer
Provides a basic overview of systems neuroscience and intrinsic connectivity networks and how they (can) relate to psychiatric disorders.

The Neuroscience of Clinical Psychiatry
This is the best textbook on neuroscience in psychiatry. Covers the neuroscience of pain, pleasure, sleep, sex, social attachment, anger and aggression, memory, intelligence and attention and the disorders that can emerge when these go awry. It's an interesting way of thinking about psychiatric disorders from a neuroscience perspective

Psychopharmacology

The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines
As already mentioned, this is the most practically useful psychopharm book out there. If there is one psychopharm book to have this is it. Focuses more on the what and how and in whom to prescribe rather than the basic pharmacology of psychiatric drugs. It is a UK book (from the Maudsley Hospital as the name suggests) so some of the drugs don't exist here or the dosing is different (e.g. 400mg increments of lithium rather than 300).

Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology
This provides a good overview of the common classes of drugs and their chemical structure, effects, indications, dosing, adverse effects, contraindications, interactions, toxicity and discontinuation. Subsequent editions have sadly cut down on older drugs (e.g. typical antipsychotics, barbiturates) to make space for newer drugs

Clinical Psychopharmacology: Principles and Practice
This book is quite opinionated from Nassir Ghaemi, but the result is a very readable and impressive single author text from one of the master psychopharmacologists which covers some history, basic pharmacology and neuroscience, clinical epidemiology and study design, drug classes, pharmacotherapy of different disorders, and a very interesting section on the "art" of psychopharmacology. Even the appendix has some interesting thoughts of the "bipolar or borderline?" debate (which I don't entirely agree with but nice to see it discussed) and adult ADHD with Ghaemi concluding "the best evidence that adult ADD is not likely to be a valid independent disease entity is that it almost always occurs with mood illnesses,which themselves cause inattention." Which may reflect his own biases but still recommend perusing.

Psychodynamic Psychopharmacology: Caring for the Treatment-Resistant Patient
Considering the relational aspects of the healing environment, the meaning of medication, and patient's ambivalence, transference, recognizing countertransference and being mindful of countertherapeutic uses of drugs is essential to sensible and effective prescribing in psychiatry. I think there are a lot of useful ideas here.

What do you think of the Neurobiology of Mental Illness book by Charney? Seems like that's what David Ross likes for the NNCI curriculum for residents.

 

[splik]

What do you think of the Neurobiology of Mental Illness book by Charney? Seems like that's what David Ross likes for the NNCI curriculum for residents.

way too long and too much on genetics, neuroimaging and animal models. There might be some chapters of interest but most of it is dull and irrelevant to the practice of psychiatry.