The Clinician’s Guide to Common Psychiatric Disorders: A Pocketbook for Diagnosis and Treatment

This book is an easy-to-read resource that covers the most common psychiatric illnesses and preferred pharmacological treatments for said illnesses. This guidebook will assist providers new to the field of psychiatry to better understand how to treat common psychiatric disorders. What follows is the accumulation of 30 years of experience paired with an eagerness to help those overwhelmed by the field of psychiatry, just as the authors once were.

The book is broken down into chapters that each cover a different illness. Each chapter briefly describes the diagnostic criteria of the illness, usually using a mnemonic to help memorize the criteria, and includes other information that may prove useful to the novice clinician. Chapters cover risk factors for the illness and common screening scales used for each diagnosis. This leads into the first-line preferred treatment. Some chapters, such as Depression, will have an easy-to-follow algorithm that covers what to do if treatment fails. Second-line treatments and off-label usage are clearly outlined throughout the book. Each medication will have the recommended starting dose of the drug according to the package insert of the medication as well as common titration methods. Maximum recommended dosages are also outlined. Drug profiles will describe the most common side effects as well as FDA indications. Each category will continue with recommended monitoring for the drug and pearls from the authors.

The Clinician's Guide to Common Psychiatric Disorders is a book intended for any provider that may prescribe psychiatric medications, whether it be a primary care physician, a physician’s assistant, or a nurse practitioner working in family medicine, or a resident just starting out in psychiatry.