Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Psychiatry's identity crisis : The Lancet

Psychiatry's identity crisis : The Lancet

The Lancet, Volume 379, Issue 9823, Page 1274, 7 April 2012
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60540-6Cite or Link Using DOI

Psychiatry's identity crisis

The Lancet
Last week, the American Psychiatric Association issued a press release highlighting an ongoing decline in the recruitment of medical students into the specialty—at a time when the numbers of practising psychiatric professionals in the USA is falling. Various reasons are proposed, including the short-term nature of placements (usually just 4 weeks); the sheer breadth of an evolving specialty, which is drawing students towards newer areas such as clinical neuroscience; and concerns that psychiatry is not as lucrative as other specialties.
Tom Brown, Assistant Registrar of Recruitment at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), UK, views psychiatry's identity crisis as an international problem, and for profound reasons. He told The Lancet: “Common perceptions within the medical profession include the view that psychiatry is just not scientific enough, is too remote from the rest of medicine, is often viewed negatively by other medical professionals, and is a specialty too often characterised by difficult doctor—patient relationships and limited success rates of therapeutic interventions”.
So, what kind of therapy is psychiatry in need of? The RCPsych views the current problem crucial enough for a concerted campaign to promote the specialty, not just to medical students and doctors at foundation stage, but even to senior-school pupils studying psychology. While such initiatives may help raise the profile of psychiatry, perhaps there are more fundamental issues that need to change.
Psychiatrists, first and foremost, are clinicians. Evidence-based approaches should be at the core of the psychiatrist and non-clinical members of any mental health team. The evidence that psychiatric patients have poorer overall health than the general population should ensure that psychiatry is strongly connected to other medical specialties. But more fundamental still, it is time for the specialty to stop devaluing itself because of its chequered history of mental asylums and pseudo-science, and to realign itself as a key biomedical specialty at the heart of mental health.
 

Psychiatric Diagnosis: Challenges and Prospects: Patterns and Prospects (World Psychiatric Association) by Ihsan M. Salloum, Juan E. Mezzich

Psychiatric Diagnosis: Challenges and Prospects: Patterns and Prospects (World Psychiatric Association) by Ihsan M. Salloum, Juan E. Mezzich

Detail:

Psychiatric Diagnosis: Challenges and Prospects: Patterns and Prospects (World Psychiatric Association)

Product Description

Psychiatric diagnosis is one of the most important topics within the broad field of psychiatry. Clear, accurate definitions of the various disorders are essential for clinicians around the world to be confident that they are classifying patients in the same way, thereby enabling comparisons of treatment regimens and their outcomes. There are two major classification systems in use, one produced by the World Health Organization, the WHO International Classification of Diseases, Mental Disorders Chapter, and one by the American Psychiatric Association, the well known Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Both of these are being revised so this book from the prestigious World Psychiatric Association is especially timely.In this book, leading experts in the field provide a broad and integrated coverage of the concepts, structure and context of psychiatric diagnosis. It begins by addressing mental health and illness around the world from historical, philosophical and cultural perspectives. Health is approached comprehensively, to include such aspects as resilience, resources and quality of life. The book then covers major specific psychopathology topics in Section II, including new categorizations and dimensional approaches. Section III concentrates on the complex problem of comorbidity, a primary challenge for modern diagnostic classifications in psychiatry. Finally, Section IV reviews emerging international diagnostic systems in psychiatry, considering innovative models and adaptations.This book will be essential reading for anyone involved in the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders.

From the Back Cover

Improved diagnostic systems are necessary to enhance clinical care, teaching and research. Written by leading experts in the field, this book provides broad, integrated coverage of psychiatric diagnosis from historical and conceptual roots to novel diagnostic approaches.Divided into four accessible sections, the book covers: Concepts of mental health and illness around the world from historical, philosophical and cultural perspectives. Health is approached comprehensively, to include such aspects as resilience, resources and quality of life Major specific psychopathology topics, including new categorizations and dimensional approaches The complex problem of comorbidity in mental and general health, a major challenge for modern diagnostic classifications in psychiatry Emerging international diagnostic systems in psychiatry, considering innovative models and adaptationsPsychiatric Diagnosis: Challenges and Prospects presents innovative and helpful models for improved evaluation and care and should be read by all mental health professionals, as well as practising clinicians, researchers and postgraduate students in psychiatry and psychology.
 

International Perspectives in Philosophy & Psychiatry - Medicine & Health Series - Series - Academic, Professional, & General - Oxford University Press

International Perspectives in Philosophy & Psychiatry - Medicine & Health Series - Series - Academic, Professional, & General - Oxford University Press


International Perspectives in Philosophy & Psychiatry
About this Series Series Editors
International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry is an international book series focusing on the emerging interdisciplinary field at the interface of philosophy and psychiatry.

Volumes in the series will continue the broad theme of 'nature' (for causes/explanations) and 'narrative' (for meanings/understandings), building links between the sciences and humanities in psychiatry, but focusing on more narrowly defined topics.

How to contribute to the series:

The series editors welcome suggestions for new books in the series. Contact any of them with a draft preface, a content listing with descriptions of chapter coverage, a definition of specific target readership groups, notes on related or competing publications, and CVs of the editor(s)/author(s).
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Philosophical and Related Perspectives
Abraham Rudnick
978-0-19-969131-9
Paperback
September 2012 (estimated)
£44.99
Autonomy and Mental Disorder
Lubomira Radoilska
978-0-19-959542-6
Paperback
19 April 2012
£39.99
Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry II
Nosology
Kenneth S. Kendler, Josef Parnas
978-0-19-964220-5
Paperback
19 April 2012
£39.95
Discursive Perspectives in Therapeutic Practice
Andy Lock, Tom Strong
978-0-19-959275-3
Paperback
05 April 2012
£39.95
The Sublime Object of Psychiatry
Schizophrenia in Clinical and Cultural Theory
Angela Woods
978-0-19-958395-9
Paperback
25 August 2011
£34.99
Portrait of the Psychiatrist as a Young Man
The Early Writing and Work of R.D. Laing, 1927-1960.
Allan Beveridge
978-0-19-958357-7
Paperback
25 August 2011
£39.99
Maladapting Minds
Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Evolutionary Theory
Pieter R. Adriaens, Andreas De Block
978-0-19-955866-7
Paperback
10 March 2011
£37.99
Thinking Through Dementia
Julian C. Hughes
978-0-19-957066-9
Paperback
17 February 2011
£34.99
Responsibility and psychopathy
Interfacing law, psychiatry and philosophy
Luca Malatesti, John McMillan
978-0-19-955163-7
Paperback
19 August 2010
£34.99
Unconscious Knowing and Other Essays in Psycho-Philosophical Analysis
Linda Brakel
978-0-19-958147-4
Paperback
17 June 2010
£34.99
Free will and responsibility
A guide for practitioners
John S. Callender
978-0-19-954555-1
Paperback
29 April 2010
£39.99
The Virtuous Psychiatrist
Character Ethics in Psychiatric Practice
Jennifer Radden, John Sadler
978-0-19-538937-1
Hardback
28 January 2010
£32.50
Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs
Lisa Bortolotti
978-0-19-920616-2
Paperback
12 November 2009
£39.99
Mapping the Edges and the In-between
A critical analysis of Borderline Personality Disorder
Nancy Nyquist Potter
978-0-19-853021-3
Paperback
25 June 2009
£39.99
Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience
Philosophical perspectives
Matthew Broome, Lisa Bortolotti
978-0-19-923803-3
Paperback
14 May 2009
£39.99
The Mind and its Discontents
Second Edition
Grant Gillett
978-0-19-923754-8
Paperback
30 April 2009
£39.99
Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and the A-rational Mind
Linda A W Brakel
978-0-19-955125-5
Paperback
12 February 2009
£39.99
Philosophical Perspectives on Technology and Psychiatry
James Phillips
978-0-19-920742-8
Paperback
23 October 2008
£39.99
Schizophrenia and the Fate of the Self
Paul Lysaker, John Lysaker
978-0-19-921576-8
Paperback
14 August 2008
£39.99
Feelings of Being
Phenomenology, psychiatry and the sense of reality
Matthew Ratcliffe
978-0-19-920646-9
Paperback
26 June 2008
£39.99
Talking Cures and Placebo Effects
David A. Jopling
978-0-19-923950-4
Paperback
29 May 2008
£37.99
Empirical Ethics in Psychiatry
Guy Widdershoven, John McMillan...
978-0-19-929736-8
Paperback
14 February 2008
£37.99
What is Mental Disorder?
An essay in philosophy, science, and values
Derek Bolton
978-0-19-856592-5
Paperback
07 February 2008
£34.99
Essential Philosophy of Psychiatry
Tim Thornton
978-0-19-922871-3
Paperback
06 September 2007
£24.99
Rationality and Compulsion
Applying action theory to psychiatry
Lennart Nordenfelt
978-0-19-921485-3
Paperback
26 April 2007
£39.99
The Philosophy of Psychiatry
A Companion
Jennifer Radden
978-0-19-531327-7
Paperback
18 January 2007
£27.50
Body-Subjects and Disordered Minds
Treating the 'whole' person in psychiatry
Eric Matthews
978-0-19-856643-4
Hardback
04 January 2007
£105.00
Body-Subjects and Disordered Minds
Treating the whole person in psychiatry
Eric Matthews
978-0-19-856644-1
Paperback
04 January 2007
£39.99
Reconceiving Schizophrenia
Man Cheung Chung, Bill Fulford...
978-0-19-852613-1
Paperback
23 November 2006
£39.99
Trauma, Truth and Reconciliation
Healing damaged relationships
Nancy Potter
978-0-19-856942-8
Hardback
24 August 2006
£95.00
Trauma, Truth and Reconciliation
Healing damaged relationships
Nancy Potter
978-0-19-856943-5
Paperback
24 August 2006
£39.99
Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry
Bill Fulford, Tim Thornton...
978-0-19-852695-7
Paperback
13 July 2006
£90.00
Postpsychiatry
Mental health in a postmodern world
Patrick Bracken, Philip Thomas
978-0-19-852609-4
Paperback
22 December 2005
£39.99
The Metaphor of Mental Illness
Neil Pickering
978-0-19-853088-6
Paperback
08 December 2005
£39.99
Dementia
Mind, Meaning, and the Person
Julian Hughes, Stephen Louw...
978-0-19-856614-4
Hardback
08 December 2005
£95.00
Dementia
Mind, Meaning, and the Person
Julian Hughes, Stephen Louw...
978-0-19-856615-1
Paperback
08 December 2005
£39.99
Values and Psychiatric Diagnosis
John Z. Sadler
978-0-19-852637-7
Paperback
28 October 2004
£44.99
Disembodied Spirits and Deanimated Bodies
The psychopathology of common sense
Giovanni Stanghellini
978-0-19-852089-4
Paperback
09 September 2004
£39.99
Mind, Meaning and Mental Disorder
The nature of causal explanation in psychology and psychiatry
Second Edition
Derek Bolton, Jonathan Hill
978-0-19-851560-9
Paperback
25 March 2004
£39.99
Nature and Narrative
An Introduction to the New Philosophy of Psychiatry
Bill Fulford, Katherine Morris...
978-0-19-852611-7
Paperback
15 May 2003
£39.99