Fish's Clinical Psychopathology has shaped the psychiatric training and clinical practice of several generations of psychiatrists, but has been out of print for many years. The third edition of this modern classic presents the clinical descriptions and psychopathological insights of Fish to a new generation of students and practitioners. This is an essential text for students of medicine, trainees in psychiatry and practising psychiatrists. It will also be of interest to psychiatric nurses, mental health social workers, clinical psychologists and all readers who value concise descriptions of the symptoms of mental illness and astute accounts of the many and varied manifestations of disordered psychological function.
The book is not only old but lacks explanations in terms of contemporary concepts and theories. I do not see it as scientific and is irrelevant for any clinical psychology student. The text is psychiatric in form and presentation and may be suitable for psychiatry students and practitioners. Any text on psychopathology in 21st century which doesn't give concrete psychological explanations (theoretical or empirical) for signs and symptoms is redundant. This book promotes disease models of mental disorders and encourage neurological bases to symptoms. The book is useless when seen in respect to current diagnostic systems like DSM-5 and ICD-11. The phenomenology of symptoms should be more psychological, than morbid.
A short and accessible overview of current thinking on psychiatric disorders. As expected, this fourth edition concentrates on the standard classifications: the DSM (the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic & Statistical Manual Diagnostic of Mental Disorders) and the ICD (the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases), but it does take a bigger picture and, when talking about the upcoming 11th revision of ICD, is honest enough to say that the changes have taken place “against a background of concern about the validity of most of the categories in the classifications heretofore.”
I bought the book as I saw it recommended for newly starting Psychiatry Trainees and Medical Students. However, I found that it's not organised in a natural, flowing way and the language was a bit too rigid and sentences unnecessarily complex. A sentence that could well have 7 words, ended up with 30. 5 seconds to read id, 30 seconds to take apart the phrase and figure out what they're saying.
Was pretty useful. Essentially lists out key symptoms and syndromes that are seen in Psychiatry. A lot is out of date but there are some timeless insights that make it worth the read.
Non mi ha convinto del tutto. Certamente utile ma credo sia complicato per i neofiti e, al contrario, a tratti troppo semplicistico per chi già mastica la materia