Purchasing books

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Is it a waste, or perhaps misdirected, to purchase a bunch of books on self-help related material (anxiety, willpower, different therapies, mood, etc) as a budding psychiatrist? Or are these not the type of things one would read in their free time if they want to better their craft.

 

[billypilgrim37]

It's really hard to separate the junk from the useful stuff, though some stuff is really helpful. I would say you should ask therapists or therapy-minded attendings about books they recommend, and go from there. Nothing wrong with having your own copy to show to patients or to just enjoy yourself. CBT lends itself well to books, and most of us could benefit from a little of that ourselves from time to time.

 

[splik]

get some novels - read proust, dostoyevsky, stendhal, lawrence, woolf etc.. the modernists had a lot to say that was relevant to psychiatry. A Remembrance of Things Past has as much to offer psychiatry as anything else at that time.

oh and read The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov.

 

[billypilgrim37]

oh and read The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov.

Better yet, just adopt a really fat black cat and name it Behemoth.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I think it's helpful to at least have a passing familiarity with what's out there--as many of your patients and/or their family members may be bringing things up using particular jargons du jour, and it can also be helpful to have some armamentarium of bibliotherapy to refer to as well.

Rather than keep a shelf full of favorites, I'll tend to just call up a title via a quick amazon.com search and print out page 1 of the webpage to give the pt. (Our clinic pharmacy does stock several discounted titles, which can be nice, though the only one I push folks to is the David Burns Feeling Good book.)

 

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I'm referring to books for my own edification. I guess my question is, if I'm not reading highly rated Amazon books on willpower, self-control, anxiety, etcetera, then how am I supposed to be learning about these things? Is there some mysterious text that we get in residency to teach us about these things? Or should I have been a psychologist.

 

[nitemagi]

I'm referring to books for my own edification. I guess my question is, if I'm not reading highly rated Amazon books on willpower, self-control, anxiety, etcetera, then how am I supposed to be learning about these things? Is there some mysterious text that we get in residency to teach us about these things? Or should I have been a psychologist.

Read anything you want...critically.

First off, there is a recommended books sticky on sdn. That's a good start. There isn't magical texts, but there are popular textbooks on many subjects. You probably won't find a psychiatric textbook on willpower, but you'll find hundreds on anxiety. As a budding psychiatrist, get the basics down, figure out an area you want to learn about, explore that, figure out where the gaps are in a traditional education, talk to others about what they recommend in that area, rinse and repeat.