DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM Hardcover)): Diagnostic and ... Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM Hardcover))

"To be honest as a work of complete fiction I found it a little thin on the ground plot wise and I didn't recognise any of the characters in it.
If you felt a chill down your spine at another customer review of this book that begins with the gloating conceited claim "The human psyche captured!" then the chances are at some point you have been or know someone who has been on the recieving end of treatment based on this reductive and "scientific" tomb.
Possible the most dangerous and damaging book since Mein Kampf -DSM IV carries on the tradtion of the American Psychiatric Association in reducing infinitley complex human behaviour into a series of parcelled, discreet, packaged, "illnesses" that powerful pharmacuetical companies, media obsessed reactionary governments and risk obsessed health services can target medication and "treatment" at in order that people no longer act like they are "insane".
Be aware that this book and the tradition it represents were the ringleaders for most of the horrors perpetrated on people diagnosed as suffering from a mental illness in the last century - patients were forcibly marched to labotomy operations and repeated electric shock treatments on the basis of a diagnosis from the psychiatric body that publishes this book. Psychiatrists involved in the early formations of this book were happy chair-leaders for eugenics and forced experiments on asylum populations.
Anyone even vaguely familiar with the history of DSM classifications (homosexuality was, until the 1980s, on its list of "mental illnesses") should regard this present wolume with little more than cynicism and contempt.
Only recently someone left the organisation responsible for this book after they had pointed out that on the basis of diagnosis from this book in some American schools up to a third of its children were classed as having ADHD and treated with drugs almost chemically identical with cocaine and ampthetamines.
It is important for anyone coming to this material for the first time that they should recognise that for a growing number of increasingly vocal nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, and most importantly psychiatric "patients", DSM IV represents everything that is rotten in psychiatry and the mental health field."
~ Written on 2006-02-28

"We are in the in-between time, the DSM-IV being over a decade old, and the DSM-V being due out at some unspecified date, but giving the general publication rate of the major DSM revisions and the advance of general knowledge, it cannot be too far into the future. I have the DSM-IV, burgundy-cover edition, and have dipped into the DSM-IV-TR on occasion from the library, but have found no particular reason to need to purchase the TR silver edition for the kind of work I do.

This is a guide that is useful, indeed required, for graduate students in mental health and psychological fields, and for professionals working in those fields. As a pastoral care provider, I find it useful in many cases, but will warn that it is not a definitive tool to be used by itself in the hands of laypersons (which, in terms of professional psychology, I most certainly am). Symptoms and diagnoses are difficult to isolate, and not to be left in the hands of amateurs - to that end, I often worry about the general availability of books such as this (I have a similar fear for the PDR, the Physicians Desk Reference, whereby people try to self-diagnose and self-medicate based on their reading).

The DSM-IV is not without controversy - indeed, the whole psychological enterprise is not without controversy. However, this is the current standard by which the profession measures itself (sometimes a bit in opposition, but there are few who hold the DSM to be meaningless).

Professionals will want to have this book; graduate students may or may not need this particular revision."
~ Written on 2006-01-05

"The DSM is - unjustly - much decried and much derided by critics, both laymen and mental health practitioners. Its shortcomings notwithstanding, it is a noble and largely successful attempt to capture the dysfunctions of the human psyche in the confines of a single tome. Is mental illness a mere figment of our cultural and social milieu? Are the distinctions between mental disorders - the differential diagnoses - too ambiguous? Is the DSM too formal and bureaucratic? You bet. Has anyone come up with anything remotely better? No, Sir! The DSM is not only a system of classification - but also an insightful distillation of decades of clinical experience. A must. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"."
~ Written on 2003-06-08

"As great as the little DSM is, the larger version is even greater and more wonderful. Especially if you're not a buddhist and need to kill a fly. Though if reincarnation does exist, the writers of this book will surely end up in the same state as all the people who have used the DSM to kill flies. I'm a vegetarian myself and all this talk about killing is making me queasy, so I'll say some other really good stuff about this book.

It's not boring in the least. The contents are as colorful as the cover.

One book to rule them all, one book to find them, one book to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."
~ Written on 2003-04-13

"A Book that is useful for both the standard undergraduate student and for those who have an avid interest in this field of psychology. Its clear terminology and description is ideal for when referencing essays and assignments. For those who are passionate about this field, the breadth of mental disorders and conditions that this book covers is enough to satisfy any quench for more knowledge. A MUST HAVE IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, for those who are not it acts as a wonderful reference."
~ Written on 2002-11-27