Psychopathology

Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding is specifically designed to meet the needs of graduate students enrolled in a one semester course on abnormal psychology or psychopathology in master's or doctoral programs in clinical and counseling psychology and related fields such as social work. Neither an undergraduate abnormal text (though suitable for use in advanced courses that presuppose a basic abnormal course) handbook-style compendium for professionals and researchers, it synthesizes the latest knowledge about the etiology and treatment of the most important psychological disorders, and challenges students to reflect on such crucial and controversial issues as the definition of psychopathology, the influence of culture and gender, the validity of psychological testing and the viability and utility of traditional psychiatric diagnosis. The authors, all leading experts, throughout focus on what has been demonstrated by research, not on what has been claimed by theories that may be accepted or traditional but lack empirical support. The first section presents and analyzes the basic concepts we need to understand disorder; the second examines the disorders most frequently encountered in clinical practice. The editors have brought to their job a combined total of 47 years of teaching graduate students. Well-organized and clearly written, Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding is an invaluable new resource for instructors and students alike.

Psychopathology is a concise introduction to the major classes of adult mental illness. Beginning with a historical overview, the authors consider how mental abnormality can be defined, reviewing the main classification systems and the issues raised in classification and diagnosis. Schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety and eating disorders are explored with a description of the main features of illness, and the signs, symptoms and effects of behavior for the patient as well as the impact on relatives and friends.

Shapiro (psychology, New School for Social Research) deepens his classic studies of psychopathology with the conceptualization of a dynamics of the whole character: a self-regulatory system that encompasses personal attitudes, modes of activity, and relationship with the external world. He demonstrates that symptomatically and diagnostically diverse conditions are not as discrete as they seem. He shows the formal relations of obsessive compulsive to paranoid, hysterical to psychopathic, and psychopathic to hypomanic conditions, and examines the relation of neurotic conditions to schizophrenia.

An interdisciplinary volume which draws together the concepts of culture and cognition in the wider context of psychopathology. It provides new perspectives on the etiology, treatment, and prevention of psychopathology by challenging current individualistic models and assumptions, while offering new theoretical formulations that take account of the cultural foundation of the cognition process.