Companion to Psychiatric Studies

Abstract

This textbook of psychiatry comprises 40 chapters written by 37 authors, most of whom are or once were members of the Department of Psychiatry of Edinburgh University or on the staff of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Edinburgh. Nonetheless, the book should not be regarded as a Scottish textbook of psychiatry. It is rather a British textbook and clearly represents an up-to-date account of psychiatry in the United Kingdom. Although the classification used by British psychiatry is that of<i>ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases</i>, ed 9, 1978), while American psychiatry uses<i>DSM-III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</i>, ed 3, 1980), there is still a great deal an American psychiatrist can learn from this book. The reader will find a number of subjects covered extensively that are absent from American textbooks and that reflect the British view. For example, the book devotes a whole chapter to psychiatric disorders of