Reviews and Notes: Psychiatry: Manual of Psychiatric Therapeutics

Manual of Psychiatric Therapeutics

Second edition. Richard I. Shader; ed. 400 pages. Boston: Little, Brown; 1994. $27.50.

A dozen and a half contributors, along with the editor, wrote this pocket-sized book, the first edition of which is 20 years old and appeared just after the introduction of psychopharmaceuticals. The 27 chapters and 7 appendixes include much material of use to internists, including "Approaches to the Treatment of Depression," "Drug Interactions in Psychopharmacology," and "Medical Evaluation of Psychiatric Patients and the Acute Treatment of Psychotropic Drug Overdose." An excellent chapter by Thomas Gutheil, professor of psychiatry and law at Harvard University, is "The Use of Physical Restraints as an Emergency Treatment." The appendix includes the Mini-Mental State Examination and the short portable mental status questionnaire. Indexed. Spiral-bound.