Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology: Neuroscientific Basis and Practical Applications (Essential...

Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology: Neuroscientific Basis and Practical Applications (Essential ... | Stephen M. Stahl | Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology: Neuroscientific Basis and Practical Applications (Essential Psychopharmacology Series)

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	Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology: Neuroscientific Basis and Practical Applications (Essential ... Stephen M. Stahl Cambridge University Press, 2008 - 1132 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Essential. Trusted. Indispensable. Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology has established itself as the preeminent source of education and information in its field. This much-expanded third edition relies on advances in neurobiology and recent clinical developments to explain the concepts underlying drug treatment of psychiatric disorders. In addition to redrawn art, an improved and more readable layout, and 30% more illustrations, the Third Edition has four all-new chapters on Psychiatric Genetics, Chronic Pain and Functional Somatic Syndromes, Disorders of Sleep, and Disorders of Cognition. Covered within are new neurotransmitter systems; theories on schizophrenia; clinical advances in antipsychotic and antidepressant therapy; coverage of attention deficit disorder and drug abuse; and new coverage of sleep disorders, chronic pain, and disorders of impulse control. This volume is indispensable for all students and professionals in mental health, enabling them to master the complexities of psychopharmacology.

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impressive

Essential Pharmacology is comprehensive and most informative. Diagnostic subjects range from mood disorders to ADHD to Fibromyalgia. The text elucidates genetics and mechanism of action through the liberal use of cartoons which are for the most part illuminating but are at times trivial. My only complaint is the lack of information on eating disorders. Which has more to do with the general ignorance of the subject vs. an editorial neglect.

Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology: Neuroscientific Basis and Practical Applications (Essential Psychopharmacology Series)

Excellent book and most helpful. I really appreciate my amazon connection. I have never had any difficulties or disappointments.

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A book for a good psychopharmarcological practice

It's nowadays a very important tool for one who studies psychiatry, psychopharmacoly, the author made a very easy way to understand this important issue.

Excellent text

Would highly recommend this text to anyone who is interested in neurological or psychiatric disorders. Very good illustrations and explanations.

Good overall, but unsubtle and dodges legitimate controversies

The biochemical illustrations are excellent but the text is lacking in nuance. (Maybe that book would require another thousand pages.) The author, in my opinion, is far too keen on a strict medical model and acceptance of DSM IV TR "disorders" and outlier conditions as diseases for which there is a pill lying in wait. The text glosses over these controversies the way that Powerpoint does at a pharma sponsored CME conference.

Nevertheless the chapter on antidepressant augmentation was excellent, though in practice I think it is foolish to use lithium for unipolar depression augmentation because it is the easiest drug to overdose on (and of course one of the big selling points of the SSRIs over TCAs to begin with was the safety factor in a suicide attempt.) One treatment that I was not aware of, and I will definitely start using in refractory cases, is MTHF supplementation which appears very safe and effective. I also learned quite a bit about alpha-2-delta ligands in the excellent chapter on ion channel blockers.

One chapter I had a lot of problems with was sleep disorders. In my opinion, the author is too cavalier about using benzo hypnotics, despite the fact that most evidence based treatment guidelines (i.e ACOEM) specifically warn against this except as a very short-term solution. I am disappointed that he failed to mention that these a history of alcohol or drug dependence changes the whole treatment paradigm. He seems enthusiastic about the "Z" hypnotics despite the scandalous promotion of Ambien as nonaddictive, a claim the manufacturer Aventis was forced to rescind. Not to mention the literature on sleepwalking and sleep driving with this drug (the Patrick Kennedy incident may have been related to this). I was also surprised to see Ambien CR (zolpidem CR) listed as a first line drug in the "hypnotic pharmacy" on page 849, under the premise of being nonaddictive. I say, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. In actual practice, the best move is to ditch all forms of Ambien, and go with Lunesta or even better yet, Rozerem, and only after trying a sedative antidepressant. The avoidance of these issues was curious to me, because the author did not flinch from addressing the problems and controversies with antispsychotics in that excellent chapter.

I also believe that the TCAs were given too little attention for their effectiveness in pain syndromes.

The following complaint is mostly about DSM-IV-TR which is obviously not the author's fault, but I wish he hadn't gotten so drunk on Bob Spitzer's Kool-Aid. Garbage in, garbage out, and if you are medicating a questionable diagnosis you will get questionable results or the condition will get better on its own, as it would have anyway. Many would argue that the lowering of the bar for psychiatric diagnosis in DSM (i.e. autism, ADD, Major Depression, PTSD) has been a benefit as these conditions are now more reliably diagnosed and more people are getting help. That may be true, but this has come at the expense of phenomenological validity. If you and I have dysphoria and 4 other completely different symptoms, guess what, we have the same diagnosis, so what are we really dealing with? If I "hear about" a tragic event and have some anxiety symptoms I can qualify for PTSD according to the DSM. I guess Mohammed Atta caused mental disorder in 300 million Americans. Does anyone believe that? Thirty years ago, if someone told me their kid had ADD or autism, I knew exactly what to expect. Today that child may be a moderately misbehaving child with poor social skills. As Tony Soprano once sarcastically asked a school psychologist diagnosing ADD, "What constitutes a fidget?"

All of this inclusiveness, whether the motive is compassionate or monetary, creates enormous problems in psychopharmacological comparisons. Older antidepressant and other psychopharm studies were done with severely ill patients with pure pathology. Today, the subjects may have a self-limited condition thanks to the changes in DSM. The success numbers for most of the SSRI studies are as inflated as today's home run totals in baseball and cannot be compared to the data from 25-30 years ago on TCAs and MAOIs. In other words, I don't buy a lot of the head to head comparisons and ratings in the text based on incomparable studies. Data is emerging that these are actually much more efficacious than the SSRI's which the author considers (along with the majority of psychiatrists) to be first line treatment. But let's be honest--the reason for this is defensive medicine, not because the new drugs are better. In fact, every senior psychopharmacologist knows that short of ECT, nothing works for refractory cases like Parnate, which is hardly ever used anymore. However, I do give the author of coming to the defense of MAOIs with some great illustrations about how the dietary problems with this group are completely overblown.

Despite these problems, I credit the author for a monumental undertaking. Obviously anything this prolific and robust will contain material with which some practitioners disagree. That would be no different if I had written it myself.

James O'Brien, M.D.

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