First published in 2000, the completely revised and updated Textbook of Psychiatry for Southern Africa, 2nd Edition is a comprehensive but accessible resource covering all aspects of psychiatry and mental health in southern Africa.

The textbook represents the collaboration of 63 experts in their fields from 10 academic institutions as well as the private sector in South Africa from disciplines including psychiatry, psychology, radiology and pharmacology. This 2nd Edition includes sections focusing on psychiatric classification and clinical assessment, including issues of particular importance such as women’s mental health, neuropsychiatry, HIV and mental health, addictions, culture and psychiatry, public mental health, and stigma.

Non-core additional information in ‘advanced reading blocks’ are aimed at the specialist-level reader. Numerous informative case studies to illustrate common real-life patient presentations of various disorders have been included.

Updated to reflect the current Mental Health Care Act (2002) as well as DSM-5 psychiatric classification, the Textbook will be an indispensable resource for a wide range of students and professionals working within and outside of the mental health field in South Africa.

Drawing on evidence from across the behavioural and natural sciences, this book advances a radical new hypothesis: that madness exists as a costly consequence of the evolution of a sophisticated social brain in Homo sapiens.

Having explained the rationale for an evolutionary approach to psychosis, the author makes a case for psychotic illness in our living ape relatives, as well as in human ancestors. He then reviews existing evolutionary theories of psychosis, before introducing his own thesis: that the same genes causing madness are responsible for the evolution of our highly social brain.

Jonathan Burns' novel Darwinian analysis of the importance of psychosis for human survival provides some meaning for this form of suffering. It also spurs us to a renewed commitment to changing our societies in a way that allows the mentally ill the opportunity of living.

The Descent of Madness will be of interest to those in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, sociology and anthropology, and is also accessible to the general reader.

Drawing on evidence from across the behavioural and natural sciences, this book advances a radical new hypothesis: that madness exists as a costly consequence of the evolution of a sophisticated social brain in Homo sapiens.

Having explained the rationale for an evolutionary approach to psychosis, the author makes a case for psychotic illness in our living ape relatives, as well as in human ancestors. He then reviews existing evolutionary theories of psychosis, before introducing his own thesis: that the same genes causing madness are responsible for the evolution of our highly social brain.

Jonathan Burns' novel Darwinian analysis of the importance of psychosis for human survival provides some meaning for this form of suffering. It also spurs us to a renewed commitment to changing our societies in a way that allows the mentally ill the opportunity of living.

The Descent of Madness will be of interest to those in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, sociology and anthropology, and is also accessible to the general reader.