Key Features

• DSM-5-TR Alignment: Organizes disorders into conceptual clusters to reveal their underlying connections.
• Integrated Diversity: Explores how human differences shape the experience and diagnosis of mental illness.
• Engaging Narrative: Balances rigorous empirical data with relatable examples and a touch of levity.
• Covers the standard topics in a streamlined and relatable way that emphasizes the development of critical thinking and reasoning skills
• Over 130 embedded links to streaming videos enrich online courses, engage students, and reinforce or augment many of the presented topics
• Consistently addresses human diversity
• Robust descriptions of disorders that do not overwhelm the reader
  • Follows the DSM-5-TR classifications (e.g., neurodevelopmental disorders rather than childhood disorders)
  • Covers newer influences and treatment modalities such as the effects of COVID-19; mindfulness-based treatments; mental-health apps; novel uses of psychoactive drugs such as ketamine; and increased reliance on telemedicine
  • Minimal emphasis on non-evidence-based treatments
• Optimizes student learning
  • Highlights and clarifies commonly misunderstood terms such as obsession or antisocial; easily confused terms like psychopathy (lack of empathy and remorse) and psychopathology (all forms of mental illness); and the mistaken assumption that negative reinforcement is synonymous with punishment
  • Practical examples from a range of fields beyond psychology, such as education, law, policing, and medicine
  • Emphasizes similarities between conditions in each diagnostic category as well as exceptions to make material easier to learn and retain
  • Optional cumulative review materials and quiz questions encourage higher orders of synthesis
• Promotes scientific thinking
  • Covers fewer studies in greater depth when appropriate by sometimes highlighting one study to discuss at length, informing students of the sample characteristics, the measures, the study design, and the outcome
  • Explains how content was discovered and the limitations of research
  • Encourages students to distinguish science from pseudoscience by providing explicit instruction in the differences between the conclusions of rigorous research and implausible, untestable, or disproven claims
  • Identifies and disputes common myths and misconceptions by revealing how a misconception arose and why it might be harmful.
• Supportive learning features:
  • Expert Vocabulary feature recognizes that students are often challenged to adapt their notions about a familiar word in a new context. This feature clarifies potentially confusing terms by distinguishing their definitions in psychology from their common uses; updates outdated terms with current terminology; differentiates multiple uses of the same word; and examines psychological and sociocultural impacts of terms.
  • Chapter-Opening vignette showcases a fictional composite of individuals who are dealing with psychological conditions or mental health challenges in contexts familiar to most students. Shorter vignettes are included throughout to ensure each disorder is introduced in an engaging and meaningful way.
  • Learning Objectives preview each main head section and help focus the reader’s attention
  • Key Terms feature pop-up definitions when read online, or as a marginal glossary when printed
  • Key Takeaways at the end of every main head section encourage retention by prompting the reader to chunk new information while it is fresh
  • DSM-5 TR Diagnostic Criteria Summaries provide key diagnostic criteria in the chapters centering around disorders (Chapters 5–16)
  • Differential Diagnosis demonstrates how the same symptoms can have many different causes and the challenges of determining whether a particular behavior is actually unusual and of clinical severity. Highlights the hazards of armchair and self-diagnosis by emphasizing how students can quickly jump from symptoms to incorrect diagnoses, including the risks and dangers of misdiagnosis. Demonstrates how diagnoses cannot be inferred from a celebrity’s public persona.
  • Psychology in the Community feature highlights how text material applies outside of the mental health fields in areas such as law, policing, education, and medicine
  • Science and Pseudoscience feature reinforces the text’s key focus on critical thinking, especially when considering the risks of trying new and/or unproven interventions. Each of these features describes an alternative diagnostic or treatment approach, including the evidence for and against its use, and why it might appear to work when it actually does not (such as homeopathy for anxiety disorders in Section 5.3)
  • Chapter Summary and Review
    • Summary helps students understand the “big picture” significance of the preceding chapter
    • Disorder Summaries highlight key elements of disorders discussed in the preceding chapter
    • Review Exercises reinforce material just learned and reinforce retention
    • Further Learning Resources lists high-interest articles, activities, books, websites, movies, podcasts, and other relevant media curated by the author to provide interactive learning experiences and explore beyond the text
• Instructor’s Manual includes lists of common student misconceptions and misunderstandings and how they might be addressed or corrected
• Fully Customizable