Book Description

Schizophrenia is one of the most complex and puzzling diseases toaffect mankind. It is the most common of the severe mentalillnesses (psychoses) with an estimated prevalence of 0.5 - 1% inthe general population and accounts for a very large portion of theday to day workload of the average psychiatrist. 50% of long-termpsychiatric patients in mental hospitals are schizophrenic. There is a great deal of controversy about the causes, diagnosisand treatment of schizophrenia with the consequence that a hugeamount of research is carried out in the field by psychiatrists,psychologists, neuroscientists and pharmacologists. For the averagepractising psychiatrist seeing schizophrenics on a regular basis,making sense of the vast body of information on the subject andfiltering out what is of clinical relevance can be very difficult.There is a constant stream of new drugs emerging and the newergeneration of drugs (the so-called atypicals) is very effective,but often expensive. The Editors (one American and one British) are both highlyrespected clinical psychiatrists who are probably the leadingexperts on schizophrenia from their respective countries andjointly have published almost 150 papers on the subject. They have brought together a strong group of contributors from theUSA, UK and Europe to produce what will be an essential referencefor the trainee and practising psychiatrist. The book consists of four sections; descriptive aspects,causative aspects, physical treatments andpsychological/behavioural/social treatments. There will bediscussion of the theoretical controversies over symptomatology,classification and aetiology, the relationship of schizophrenia tothe other psychoses, the significance of positive and negativesymptoms and pre-morbid personality. There will be chapters onorganic models of schiziophrenia, neurodevelopmental, genetic andstructural studies and the role of high-expressed emotion. Thefinal section will cover social and environmental treatment, therole of the families of schizophrenics and the psychoanalyticaltherapies. There is a new chapter on the patient's perspectivewritten by a former patient.