According to a major health survey, nearly half of all Americans have been mentally ill at some point in their lives-more than a quarter in the last year. Can this be true? What exactly does it mean, anyway? What's a disorder, and what's just a struggle with real life? This lucid and incisive book cuts through both professional jargon and polemical hot air, to describe the intense political and intellectual struggles over what counts as a "real" disorder, and what goes into the "DSM," the psychiatric bible. Is schizophrenia a disorder? Absolutely. Is homosexuality? It was-till gay rights activists drove it out of the DSM a generation ago. What about new and controversial diagnoses? Is "social anxiety disorder" a way of saying that it's sick to be shy, or "female sexual arousal disorder" that it's sick to be tired? An advisor to the DSM, but also a fierce critic of exaggerated overuse, McNally defends the careful approach of describing disorders by patterns of symptoms that can be seen, and illustrates how often the system medicalizes everyday emotional life. Neuroscience, genetics, and evolutionary psychology may illuminate the biological bases of mental illness, but at this point, McNally argues, no science can draw a bright line between disorder and distress. In a pragmatic and humane conclusion, he offers questions for patients and professionals alike to help understand, and cope with, the sorrows and psychopathologies of everyday life.

This text contains a collection of 43 primary sources, ranging from newspaper articles to contributions to scholarly journals. It will form an indispensable supplement to any course in abnormal or clinical psychology. The articles represent current psychopathology, and indicate the direction of new research. The editors provide introductory material for each article.

The book sets itself the ambitious task of exploring the relationship between human culture and the phenomenon of mental illness, that which has embarrassed, fascinated, and challenged educated minds throughout the centuries. Various manifestations of this phenomenon are examined in specific cultural contexts, presented with notable competence, and illustrated with memorable descriptions of clinical cases. (...) The book and its author have many merits-the capacity to present a highly specialized subject in an intelligible, absorbing, and simultaneously profound manner; respectable erudition and academic self-discipline; and the notable skill of handling different domains of knowledge, among others. The most remarkable quality, however, is the author's concern both for the reader-who is carefully led into quite unknown and still frightening territory-as well as for his protagonists, the mentally ill. All told, I believe that this book will be of interest not just to students of psychiatry, psychology, and anthropology, but also to a broader circle of readers who are excited by the wretched and admirable destiny of being human. Haralan Alexandrov

Extreme Fear, Shyness, and Social Phobia assembles a stellar group of researchers to discuss the origins, development, and outcomes of extreme fear and shyness. By selecting the foremost experts from disparate fields, the editors provide a thorough and timely examination of the subject and present state-of-the-art research for psychologists, neuroscientists, and clinicians interested in the development and outcome of these emotions in mental health. This book is divided into three parts. Part I investigates the development of fear and shyness in childhood; Part II examines the endocrine and neural bases of fear; and Part III provides clinical perspectives. As well, this is one of the only books available to cover the development and outcomes of extreme fear and shyness, explain the basic neuroscience of fear, and document the clinical outcomes of social phobia.

Changes that parents and other family members make to their own behaviors to help a child avoid or alleviate anxiety are known as accommodations. Parental accommodation is a key aspect of child anxiety, and has a major impact on course, severity of symptoms and impairment, family distress, and treatment outcomes. As such the careful, gradual removal of accommodation by parents and loved ones is an important target of anxiety treatment for children. Addressing Parental Accommodation When Treating Anxiety in Children provides invaluable guidance to clinicians who wish to address accommodation within the context of a broader treatment strategy for anxious children, or as a stand-alone treatment. Clinicians will learn from this concise and easily accessible primer how to help parents identify and monitor accommodation, how to create treatment plans for reducing accommodation, and how to help parents communicate these plans to their children and implement them effectively. They will also learn how to help families cope with disruptive child responses to reduced accommodation, how to work with parents who struggle to cooperate, and what to do about a child's threats of self-harm. The book includes transcripts and rich clinical illustrations, as well as guidance on how to discuss accommodation with both parents and children-including a wealth of easily understood metaphors to aid in approaching the topic with empathy and without judgment. Addressing Parental Accommodation When Treating Anxiety in Children is an essential resource that will be of use to psychologists, counsellors, and clinical social workers who treat anxious children.