Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders: A Step-by-Step Treatment Manual

The editor is a highly experienced and well thought of professor of psychology and psychiatry in the USA with numerous publications in the form of articles, book chapters and books. He has also received numerous awards. The book is divided into chapters, relating either to diagnostic categories or to particular models of treatment for specific disorders. Each chapter is divided into sections covering such topics as prevalence, history of the disorder in question, presentation, theoretical (psychological) models of the disorder, assessment and treatment with review of the evidence for different treatment modalities. Each chapter ends with a case ex ample of a therapeutic intervention, with session-by-session descriptions. The book is very accessibly written and appears thoroughly researched and referenced. As an up-to-date reference of the current state of evidence for the disorders and treatment approaches that it covers it is very useful. There is a strong weighting towards North American chapter authors, however, and for a European reader this does lead to several significant omissions of treatments that have been developed either in the UK or in Europe. An example would be the absence of any mention of dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT) for mood disorders as developed at the Tavistock Clinic in London and currently being rolled out within NHS IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) services. There are two randomized controlled trials running at the moment to enhance the evidence base for DIT (for those with an interest in this, see http://www.redit.org.uk/ for further information). A second example would be narrative exposure therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, which was developed in Germany and which now has a considerable evidence base across Europe [1]. These omissions do leave one feeling as though the relevance of this book is diminished somewhat for a UK audience.