[.ca] Desk Reference to the Diagnostic Criteria From DSM-IV ... (ISBN 0890420270)

My constant companion:
The argument "diagnosis/no diagnosis" should be over with by now. A patient may be treated in a community mental health setting, then in a hospital, then elsewhere. The referring clinician needs to provide information about her difficulty, and diagnosis is a concise and helpful way of doing this. Her care will be paid for by an insurance company or a government entity, which usually (whether we like it or not) will ask for a number to ensure they have a disease that "meets criteria." Careful training in diagnosis is needed to ensure health professionals don't have a cavalier attitude towards the diagnoses they provide; but simply sticking to the criteria outlined in the IV-TR helps ward off such lack of carefulness. It also helps make it more likely that Dr. X in San Francisco is talking about the same thing when he says "schizophrenia, paranoid type" as Dr. Y in Virginia Beach when he says "schizophrenia, paranoid type." Such reliability is essential in our continued research on mental illness and substance abuse. That said, a clinician in a hospital or clinic setting who needs to understand or determine diagnosis can benefit from both the hardcover versions of the DSM-IV-TR and this spiral bound version. I myself have the hardbound DSM-IV, and instead of purchasing both TR's, simply purchased the spiral-bound DSM-IV-TR. The spiral bound is essential because, with so much use, a glued binding will quickly fall apart. As a clinician currently assigned to a county hospital screening site, I carry my little spiral book everywhere. It fits easily into my purse, but it's not so small that the print is hard to read. There is even a pull-out of all the diagnoses at the beginning that's handy to glance at or tack on the wall. You will need the hardbound because of the additional information, but if your work requires you to do evaluations in a variety of settings, or even if you know you will be referring to it often and don't want to be bothered getting the big one off the shelf, definitely purchase this one as well. Kelly L. Norman, ACSW

a lean, mean DSM-IV-TR:
This book is the less intimidating version of the complete "DSM-IV-TR". It's a no nonsense summary of the salient points of the complete text, and in that sense it's somewhat more practical and quicker to use. Professionals in the field of psychiatry may want to keep it handy. Also, for those outside the field of psychiatry, it could also be considered as an alternative to buying the complete "DSM-IV-TR", though I would suggest the complete book for those most interested in getting a thorough look at the bible of psychiatry. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

How does this differ from the regular, desk reference DSM IV:
Is there any difference from the regular DSM IV desk reference?

Great as Quick DSM Reference:
This reference guide is a great addition to any medical professional's or student's library. It is very helpful in quickly gathering information regarding a particular mental disorder or for symptons based look-ups. In life we meet thousands of people with their own manners, quirks and habits. It is fascinating to see how some of them fall into a pre-defined psychological category based on their outwardly symptoms. Using the DSM Desk Ref. you can quickly get information regarding a particular disorder. Please keep in mind that this guide is simply that, A Guide. The psychiatric community is still doing research continualy on the world around us and making changes to their perspectives as well as ours. The DSM only accounts for the information gathered at the time of publication and is soley based on the research of those that had a hand in its finished product. For example, when the DSM-I came out in 1952 is listed only 66 disorders. The DSM-IV, which was published in 1994, lists around 400 disorders and allows for better usuage with decision trees and the like. I for one am very curious to see how the DSM-V differs from today's views... Even with these constraining factors, it is the de facto standard in the Psychiatric community and well worth having by your side.

As a psychiatrist I abhor the DSM:
Did you know that a bad hair day is a psychiatric condition? Hey look it up under adjustment disorder with anxiety! Anything in life that goes wrong and the baffling complexity wonder strife and beauty in the human condition all boiled down to neat little categories basically for insurance billing. It was interesting for me to observe in the late 80s that the diagnosis of major depression went up dramatically when insurance companies stopped paying for alcoholism and adjustment disorder of adolescence. This is a book written by people who want to categorize the uncategorizable. Kind of like that poetry book Robin Williams tore up in Dead Poets Society. You know, the one that came up with a formula for greatness of a poem. Sure some conditions like bipolar disorder seem to be somewhat genetic and discrete but most of this is just drawing fine lines through a fuzzy set. This book is a disgrace to the profession and part of the reason psychiatrists have a bad public image. It is the same mentality responsible for the overprescription of Ritalin...classifying normal variation or a societal adjustment as illness.