Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30495 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-21
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 316 pages

Review
"This excellent volume is a very practical, well-organized, and elegant guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders. As readers of his other books know, Morrison is a great writer with a wealth of clinical knowledge, wit, and great common sense. This volume will be highly appreciated by medical students, psychiatry residents, psychology interns, and their teachers. It is a terrific teaching text."--Richard Balon, MD, Wayne State University School of Medicine

"This introduction to the process of mental health diagnosis is the best and most readable book on the topic I have seen. The author has an engaging, even entertaining manner of introducing the reader to basic principles of diagnosis. He uses excellent examples to apply these principles to a variety of common Axis I and II diagnostic categories. I was particularly impressed with the inclusion of tables that succinctly summarize the complex material. This book would be appropriate for any graduate-level course on the topic of DSM-IV diagnosis in any of the human service professions."--Joseph Walsh, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University

"Dr. Morrison’s extensive clinical experience shines through in this well-written, accessible guide to the complexities of mental health diagnosis. The book is brought to life with numerous clinical case examples, providing students and clinicians with rich illustrations of how diagnostic principles can be applied across a wide range of presentations. This text is particularly well suited for courses in clinical assessment and interviewing, though seasoned practitioners will also find it useful for sharpening their skills."--Martin M. Antony, PhD, Ryerson University, Toronto

"Morrison has again written a very useful book for mental health practitioners. This easy-to-read book is spiced with pertinent clinical vignettes and flow charts. The book provides a series of diagnostic algorithms that nicely complement the treatment algorithms increasingly being used in clinical practice. After all, treatment algorithms are of little use if the diagnosis is incorrect. Students and residents will find this a most helpful contribution, and experienced clinicians also will have much to gain."--David L. Dunner, MD, University of Washington
"This book presents a clear, easy-to-follow framework for understanding the process of diagnosis."--Carolyn A. Bradley, PhD, Department of Social Work, Monmouth University

"A useful resource for clinicians to learn a systematic approach for arriving at diagnoses....Appropriate for students and those in early postgraduate training, as well as more experienced clinicians endeavoring to teach this material. For these readers, it could also serve as a useful foundation for building a thoughtful approach to psychiatric diagnosis."--Psychiatric Services



"This book pulled me in, because it is different than most other books on diagnosis, it fills a niche, and the writing style is marvelous....Morrison adopts the role of a friendly tutor, one who has a wealth of clinical experience but assumes that some readers are new to this and that some seasoned clinicians were trained poorly or have developed bad habits that interfere with their capacity to reliably diagnose patients with precision. He writes in a style that is both scientific and professional, but also conversational....This book would be of value to students in training, as the basis for a course on diagnostics, or as a reference honing the skills of experienced clinicians, which is exactly how I used it. This is an exceptional book that must be read and reread because of the wealth of information it contains."--APA PsycCRITIQUES

About the Author
James Morrison, MD, earned his BA at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and obtained his medical degree and psychiatric training at Washington University in St. Louis. With an extensive work history in both the private and public sectors, he is currently Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Dr. Morrison’s other books for professionals include The First Interview, DSM-IV Made Easy, When Psychological Problems Mask Medical Disorders, and Interviewing Children and Adolescents. He is also the author of Straight Talk about Your Mental Health, a comprehensive guide for consumers.

Customer Reviews

Diagnosis Made Easier TRUE TO IT'S TITLE
This volume by Morrison is incredibly reader friendly, common sensical, and practical for use by mental health professionals as it pertains to making accurate diagnoses. A very helpful approach with a step-by-step process of developing your diagnosis.

hate the title
i am a licensed social worker. this text, as well as morrison's other text on the dsm are good and helpful. i just have to say that i hate the titles. i don't find the DSM 'difficult' or complicated to understand nor do i find differential diagnosis a 'difficult' process. i find it a serious and substantial process, one of depth. i do have philosophical, theoretical, and practical disagreements and issues with the dsm. that doesn't mean i don't understand it. i turn to texts to supplement, enhance, round out, ensure thoroughness and fullness. i do dislike the phrase 'made easier' regarding my licensed duties and practice. the title activates a feeling of inadequacy in me every time i reach for these books. it's offputting and irritating. consequently i end up using the texts less than i would and others more. i eventually gave them away to the library. i wonder. how much confidence would be inspired, inwardly and outwardly, if medical doctors, engineers, physical scientists, and architects walked around with texts such as 'medicine made easier', 'neurology made easier' 'brain surgery made easier' 'pharmacotherapy made easier', 'designing and building skyscrapers made easier'? it feeds and reenforces the perspective that social science, behavior science, clinical work and treatment---and those who pursue and practice it---are intellectually weak minded, superficial, and unaware of the realities of the demands, extent, terrain and depth of 'knowledge' beyond itself. it is a disservice to the professions.

Wonderful Book
1. What makes James Morrison's books special to me

James Morrison has a wonderful quality: He is precise without losing his warmth. From graduate school (I have an M.A. in Psychology), I know the following dilemma: Nobody wanted to make a diagnosis of a patient (and wanted even less to be diagnosed!), because it felt like "putting people in boxes" or "being judgmental"; people were afraid the diagnostic process would be mechanical and heartless, the more so, the more precise one tried to be. Indeed, estrangement between clinician and patient/client is a danger of the diagnostic process. On the other hand, I also saw the opposite: the attempt of being close to a client, to establish warmth and rapport, can blur the clarity with which the client's problems are perceived and described. When diagnosing, it is difficult to have both, precise diagnosing and establishing optimal rapport.

The best way to learn how to unify precision and rapport is to have a mentor who can do this. James Morrison's books on diagnosis are, in my opinion, such a mentor. In every description and discussion of a patient you feel the warmth toward the described patient; at the same time you can clearly see how and why Morrison diagnoses a patient in a certain way. (At times, by the way, he also describes cases when a diagnosis cannot be made.) And he does not only like the patients, he also likes you, the reader, which you will soon feel when you start reading.

In addition, James Morrison writes very well. Reading him is a joy. The descriptions of his patients are personally (not just clinically) interesting: at times you can read it like a novel. He shows humor that is *never* denigrating. And it is, in a way, a very easy read. It is not an easy read because it is fluffy, needs pages to explain a point, or glosses over complicated topics, but because it is structured so well that one thing naturally leads to the next. Dolly Parton supposedly said of herself, "It's quite expensive to look so cheap"; with regard to James Morrison's books I would to say, "I must have been quite difficult writing a book that is so easy to read."

2. Content

The book has three parts:
I. The Basics of Diagnosis, describes the diagnostic method: How to get from the signs and symptoms of a patient to the differential diagnosis (i.e., a list of possible diagnoses), how to put these into a hierarchy (the "Hierarchy of Safety") and how to pick one (or several) as your working diagnosis. He discusses how to deal with conflicting information, missing information, uncertainty, and possible comorbid diagnoses in this process. Morrison stresses how important it is to "cast a wide net", i.e., consider a wide range of diagnoses in the beginning to avoid narrowing oneself down too fast with the danger of possibly missing the correct choice.
II. The Building Blocks of Diagnosis, covers (a) what information we might want to get, beyond and apart from just a symptom list, to understand the whole patient as a human being, (b) the connection between physical and mental illness, covering especially the case that a physical or substance problem causes the patient's mental symptoms, and (c) the role of the Mental Status Examination in a short summary.
III. Applying the Diagnostic Techniques, discusses in depth diagnostic problem fields (such as Mood Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Psychoses, Cognitive Disorders, Substance Use Disorders, and Personality Disorders), each in a seperate chapter. (I am not through reading this part of his book.)

3. Relationship to Morrison's other books

Part I, in which the diagnostic method is explained, was covered in a shorter version in his "The First Interview" (Ch. 18). I am very thankful to be able to read this material in an elaborated version, enriched with more discussion and case studies. Part II covers material that Morrison already covered in much greater detail in his "The First Interview" and in "When Psychological Problems Mask Medical Disorders" (both of which I highly recommend). But Morrison did not just copy-paste this part from his older books, but wrote these chapters anew. Thus, I did not find it boring to read them; rather, they presented a helpful summary of what I already knew. Part III (which I have just started) seems to cover material that Morrison already wrote about in his "DSM-IV Made Easy". But he arranged it very differently. Currently, I have the impression that it goes beyond his "DSM-IV Made Easy" insofar as it discusses details and subtleties not thus discussed in his earlier book. E.g., he gives very nice "decision trees". It may be that it is helpful to have a basic knowledge of mental health diagnosis if one wants to get the most out of this part, as it discusses details that a beginner may not be able to appreciate. Whatever, I always feel it is helpful to read cases and case discussions, as these discussions somehow sink into my unconscious and, in the long run, help me make better decisions for my patients.

4. For whom

I think this is a good book for any student of mental health diagnosis, be it as a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, social worker, psychiatric nurse, or psychiatry intern. As a refresher, and if you think you have some bad diagnostic habits that you might want to challenge, I think it would also be interesting for more experienced diagnosticians. (I do not think that lay people would be really interested in this book, although I do think an intelligent lay person with a batchelor in any field would probably understand it.) Should you read this book if you have read his other books? Well, I think it can hone your skills, deepen your knowledge, refresh things you might have forgotten--and it won't be boring.

I wrote this to give something back in return for all the help I received, personally and professionally. I hope this was helpful to you, the reader.