Author Description

This new Oxford Textbook will become the definitive source for all psychiatrists and trainees. It covers all areas of general psychiatry in depth, and includes sections on each of the subspecialties (for example child psychiatry and forensic psychiatry). It is designed to be used by those in higher training, for continuing education and reaccreditation, and as a specialist's reference. The textbook has been planned with the three themes of contemporary psychiatry in mind. First, the subject has become more unified: there are no longer competing theoretical schools; the biological and psychosocial models have been largely reconciled; and the scientific and clinical points of view have been brought together in an evidence-based approach. The second theme is the importance of the social context in which psychiatry is becoming increasingly similar in different countries; this book opens with a subject that is central to the editors' view of the practice of psychiatry: the patient's experience of psychiatric illness.