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Written in a lively and entertaining style, Facts and Fictions in Mental Health examines common conceptions and misconceptions surrounding mental health and its treatment. Each chapter focuses on a misconception and is followed by a discussion of related findings from scientific research. A compilation of the authors''Facts and Fictions'columns written for Scientific American Mind, with the addition of six new columns exclusive to this book Written in a lively and often entertaining style, accessible to both the undergraduate and the interested general reader Each chapter covers a different'fiction'and allows readers to gain a more balanced and accurate view of important topics in mental health The six new columns examine myths and misconceptions of considerable interest and relevance to undergraduates in abnormal psychology courses Introductory material and references are included throughout the book

This book is the product of many years'experience teaching behavioral science in a way that demonstrates its relevance to clinical medicine. We have been guided by the reactions and evaluations of many first-year medical students. The result is a conceptual framework different from those that we and others had tried before. Because the clinical relevance of knowledge about human behavior is less apparent to many first-year students than that of the other traditional pre­ clinical courses, books and courses organized as brief introductions to psychology, sociology, and behavioral neurology have often been poorly received. Various medical schools and texts have explored ways to overcome this difficulty. One text organizes the presentation around very practical problems which are of unmistakable interest to the future physician: the therapeutic relationship, death and dying, sexuality, and pain, to give a few examples. Another emphasizes stages of development, periods of the human life cycle, as its organizing principle. Both of these approaches have merit and have been used successfully in various schools. They seem to us, however, to have a potentially serious shortcoming. They focus student attention too much on the more immediately intriguing issues of specific clinical problems or on the more easily recognized age­ specific behavioral issues. In the limited time available, the teaching of general principles of human behavioral functioning may then be neglected.

Tragically, the daily news is filled with stories about hurtful and seemingly mystifying problems in human behavior. Each morning we face news stories about murder, suicide, drunken driving accidents, child molestation, drug abuse, gambling, criminal behavior, and so forth. The cover stories of news magazines from Time and Newsweek to U.S. News and World Report often focus on abnormal psychology and behavior connected to these particular topics, as well as to autism, child hyperactivity, depression, eating disorders, and more. In these volumes, experts in their respective fields draw together compelling chapters on the abnormal psychology and resulting behaviors that are today most often and most dramatically at issue in our world, including such topics as workaholism. Written with accessibility in mind, the set is intended to bridge the gap between research monographs and self-help books, to give layreaders and students solid and up to date information without having to translate jargon-heavy text.Most people today are impacted by abnormal behavior or mental illness in some way. Some suffer from their own mental disorders or live with someone who does. Others have been victimized by people experiencing abnormal psychology, including the 20% of American women and 15% of American men reporting they were sexually abused as children. Mental illness and abnormal behavior touches all of us. This set can help us cope.

Based on years of teaching psychiatry to medical students and residents, this single-authored textbook offers a conversational yet detailed guide to modern psychiatric theory and practice. Exploring various approaches to psychiatric disorders - including neurobiology, dimensional personality assessment, behavioral science, and psychodynamic and cognitive theories - it lucidly illustrates each approach's strengths and weaknesses and suggests how clinicians can interweave them in working with patients. Using clinical vignettes and recent research findings to illustrate the connections between phenomenology, pathophysiology, and treatment, it covers all of the major psychiatric disorders and includes tables listing their DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria. The book offers balanced coverage of subjects that receive scant attention in other introductory textbooks, including the limitations of the DSM-IV categorical approach to psychiatric diagnosis, controversies surrounding the dissociative disorders and'recovered memories,'and the prescription of stimulant medications to children with suspected attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Later chapters provide practical guidelines for estimating a patient's risk of suicide and violence and for assessing competence to consent to medical or psychiatric treatment. In eschewing a dry recitation of clinical syndromes for an engaging discussion aimed at teaching the reader how to'think psychiatrically,'the book will appeal to medical students, psychiatric residents, mental health clinicians, and primary care physicians.