The Disorders

The Disorders is a derivative volume of articles pulled from the award-winning Encyclopedia of Mental Health, providing A-to-Z coverage of the many disorders afflicting mental health patients, including alcohol problems, Alzheimer's disease, depression, epilepsy, gambling, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias, and suicide.

According to 1990 estimates, mental disorders represent five of the ten leading causes of disability.* Among "developed" nations, including the United States, major depression is the leading cause of disability. Also near the top of these rankings are bipolar depression, alcohol dependence, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In addition, mental disorders are tragic contributors to mortality, with suicide perennially representing one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.

The Disorders presents a comprehensive overview of the disorders afflicting mental health patients. It describes the impact of mental health on the individual and society and illustrates the factors that aid positive mental health. Thirty-five peer-reviewed articles written by more than 50 expert authors include essential material on specific disorders affecting modern society. Professionals and libraries will find this timely work indispensable.

Audience: Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers.

In 1998, Academic Press published the award-winning three volume Encyclopedia of Mental Health encompassing coverage of disorders, epidemiology, issues of treating specific patient populations, therapies, and more. By popular demand, we now present a more concise work: The Disorders, containing only those articles specific to mental disorders. Coverage includes 35 peer-reviewed articles by more than 50 expert authors. Articles include standard DSM diagnoses such as depression, schizophrenia, phobias and the like, as well as commonly seen problems across disorders such as Pre-menstrual Syndrome, Alzheimer's Disease, and threat of suicide. Methodological issues receive attention throughout, including chapters on DSM-IV and on nontraditional approaches to classifying mental disorders.

Also Available:
Encyclopedia of Mental Health
Three-Volume Set
1998, 2,398 pp. / ISBN: 0-12-226675-7

Assessment and Therapy: Specialty Articles from the Encyclopedia of Mental Health
2001, 392 pp. / ISBN: 0-12-267806-0

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Daniel Loiterstein, MD(Rush University Medical Center)
Description:Mental health encompasses concepts that have evolved with the exponential increase in information in the biological and cultural sciences. The Encyclopedia of Mental Health claims to be the first publication to assemble this combined knowledge into one resource. This book contains selections from the encyclopedia about specific mental disorders and their assessment.
Purpose:The purpose is to provide a more accessible, concise reference to complement the encyclopedia. Individual chapters present information on all DSM-IV categories. Some mental healthcare professionals, such as psychoanalysts, may find the book lacking. The majority of mental health students and professionals would find this book immensely useful.
Audience:The book is written with students, research professionals, and practicing clinicians in mind. Nearly all students and professionals would find this book useful. Research professionals may find the depth of coverage inadequate for specific questions. The editor-in-chief is a well-established leader in psychology. Academics with both PhDs and MDs contributed.
Features:An individual article covers a topic. Each article contains an outline, glossary, cross-references, and bibliography. Information is well organized and easily accessible. Some subject matter is overlapped between articles. For this reason cross-references are provided. At the end of each article a limited bibliography includes secondary sources of information. A researcher may find this bibliography insufficient. The index is extremely useful. There are occasional charts, but there are no other illustrations such as pictures or graphs.
Assessment:This book faced the challenge of being relevant to a population of mental health providers with sometimes conflicting and diverse views. It achieves its goal without compromising comprehensiveness or verity.

Howard S. Friedman is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. He also holds an adjunct appointment as Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Diego Medical School. Dr. Friedman attended Yale University, graduating magna cum laude with Honors in psychology. He was awarded a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship at Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1976. Dr. Friedman is the author of many influential scientific articles in leading journals and was named "most-cited psychologist" by the publishers of the Social Science Citation Index. His books include a textbook, three edited scholarly volumes, and a comprehensive trade analysis. Friedman is a thrice-elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. His research centers around the relations of mental and physical health, and he has received research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Cancer Society, and the American Heart Association. Dr. Friedman also directs a project on health and longevity funded by the National Institute on Aging.