American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Schizophrenia »

Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D., is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University; Director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute; Director of the Lieber Center for Schizophrenia Research; and Psychiatrist-in-Chief at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

T. Scott Stroup, M.D., M.P.H., is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Diana O. Perkins, M.D., M.P.H., is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.

Although there are many books that consider aspects of schizophrenia such as research or clinical care, now there is a single resource that puts the many facets of this widely misunderstood disorder in perspective. The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Schizophrenia offers broad coverage that encompasses the current state of knowledge the cause, nature, and treatment of schizophrenia. Experts in a wide range of disciplines from North America and Europe have contributed chapters that address the complexity of schizophrenia in a comprehensive volume on this singularly perplexing mental illness.

No disorder is more challenging to psychiatrists and mental health care providers than schizophrenia, a condition that robs people of their personality and intellect and leaves them permanently disabled. This book leads readers through the maze of questions surrounding the disorder, from historical overview and epidemiology to consideration of comorbid conditions. It covers both genetic and environmental causes, describes all of the leading theories of schizophrenia—neurodevelopmental, neurochemical, phospholipid, and neuroprogressive—and explores the involvement of abnormal brain circuitry and the results of the latest neuroimaging studies. For practicing clinicians, the topics covered represent the most essential, timely, and informative insights for treating this most prototypic of mental illnesses:

• Approaching cognitive impairment as a potential psychopharmacological target for treatment, plus treatment strategies for improving functioning in individuals with social or vocational impairment.
• An overview of selected antipsychotic drugs—including common side effects—as well as antianxiety/hypnotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and dopamine agonists.
• A review of current proven psychosocial interventions designed to augment and complement drug therapy, highlighting the trend toward optimizing patient preference in the choice of treatment modality.
• Keys to early identification of individuals vulnerable to psychoses and to assessing the potential for intervention with the promise of treatment earlier in life.
• Optimal treatment approaches for first episodes—including individual, group, and family therapies—to increase the likelihood of full recovery.
• Special considerations for treatment of chronic schizophrenia, addressing frequently asked questions faced by psychiatrists in their daily encounters with patients.

While its causes and cure remain elusive, schizophrenia can be better understood with the help of the authoritative knowledge collected in these pages. Squarely confronting a disease that has long afflicted and baffled human society, this textbook will serve as a dependable source of knowledge for a generation of students, scientists, and clinicians to come.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Michael Joel Schrift, D.O., M.A.(University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine)
Description:This is an excellent and comprehensive new textbook devoted entirely to schizophrenia. This textbook summarizes the enormous body of literature and the contemporary state of the science of schizophrenia research. Written and edited by a team of internationally recognized clinician-scientists in schizophrenia research, this textbook represents what current psychiatry is all about.
Purpose:The purpose of the textbook is to produce a textbook that encompasses "...the current state of knowledge of its (schizophrenia) cause, nature, treatment, and services..." The editors correctly point out that there is not a singular textbook that incorporates, in such depth, all these domains of schizophrenia care. The editors and chapter authors have accomplished their mission.
Audience:The intended audience is, of course, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatry residents, graduate students in psychology, researchers studying the basic and cognitive neuroscience of psychosis and schizophrenia would have their knowledge base broadened by reading this exceptional textbook.
Features:The textbook features 435 pages divided into 23 chapters and an index. The topics covered include all the important areas such as the history, epidemiology, genetic, prenatal/perinatal factors, neurodevelopmental theories, neurochemical theories, phospholipids, neuroprogressive theories, neuropathology and neural circuits, structural and functional neuroanatomy, psychopathology, comorbid disorders, neurocognition, social cognition, social/vocational impairments, clinical course, pharmacotherapy, psychosocial therapies, the prodromal phase, first episode features, treatment of chronic schizophrenia, nonpsychiatric comorbidity, and treatment within the public sector. The textbook contains great illustrations and figures. Each chapter contains relevant and timely citations of the literature. The index was very helpful in a textbook of this size. The only criticism of the textbook (and of contemporary schizophrenia research) is that schizophrenia is treated and talked about as if it is a single disease entity. There was only one paragraph in the first chapter that even mentioned this issue. If mental retardation and dementia were researched the way schizophrenia seems to be studied, we would never have discovered such entities as Rett syndrome, fragile X, progressive supranuclear palsy and Lewy body disease!
Assessment:This is an exceptional new textbook on schizophrenia. All clinicians and researchers who are interested in psychosis and schizophrenia should know the information contained in this textbook. I highly recommend it.