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My psych residents find Stahl's Prescriber Guide to be very helpful for clinical decision making. I believe the latest edition is the 5th.

Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry is good for general psych knowledge. Latest edition is 11th I believe.

Don't forget to have a copy of the DSM 5! At least for billing/coding purposes. Despite its limitations, it is the system that all insurances, etc use.

Also a shout out to Daniel Carlat's website, newletter and CME products. I find them helpful, and devoid of any Pharma advertising.

These are good sources for the psychopharm side of practice. If you are interested in doing psychotherapy, there are some good sources out there as well.

Hope this helps. And thanks for entering our field. We desperately need more good people, and the work though tough is very rewarding.

I feel like most psychiatrists think psychodynamically, but prescribe therapy cognitive-behaviorally. I recommend, Brief Dynamic Therapy by Hanna Levenson. This helped me conceptualize maladaptive behavior in a way that really fit my own worldview. It's dynamic theory but has many CBT components, and it's super short.

Right now I'm reading Persuasion in Healing. It's not exactly what you're asking for but it gives an interesting history of conceptualizing the healer and their role in the relationship.

Exceptional post. Thanks for sharing your perspective and experience with the community.

Couple questions:

>It's just that I view the mind as an emergent phenomenon, and as such, likely irreducible to things as simple as "welp, it had a budge in voxens in x,y coordinates.

Who do you think best elucidates on the concept of emergence? Are there certain emergence authors you'd specifically caution against?

In particular, are you familar with Michael Gazzaniga's work, (his latest: Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain)? His perspective helped reshape my prior limited conceptions of the mind and was especially useful in addressing responsibility in a deterministic paradigm.

Also, thoughts on autopoiesis as discussed by the likes of Varla, Maturana, Tompson, etc (e.g. The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience (1991), or Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (2007)?

Goodwin and Guze psychiatric diagnosis (https://www.amazon.com/Goodwin-Guzes-Psychiatric-Diagnosis-Carol/dp/0195144295/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491703771&sr=8-1&keywords=goodwin+and+guze+psychiatric+diagnosis)

I'm a psychiatry intern, and this is the book I read every night. Very will written and both easy and enjoyable to read. It really helps conceptualize the psychiatric assessment.

Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience https://www.amazon.com/Psychiatry-Clinical-Neuroscience-Charles-Zorumski/dp/0199360561/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1491704272&sr=8-2&keywords=clinical+neuroscience+psychiatry

This is what it sounds like, helps you remember that psychiatry still has roots in neurology.

Personally I love Stahl's pharm book. It has pictures, it's concise, and it's mostly right. If you get to the point where it's not answering your question you're probably past textbooks anyway and need to hop on PubMed.

Hello lilrevolution,

If you are looking for a case-based approach, then try Irvin Yalom's book Love's Executioner. It is a series of cases from a psychotherapist's point of view. Very good read and great place to start.

History of psychotherapy explored in a very engaging and informative way is: Freud and Beyond:
http://www.amazon.com/Freud-Beyond-History-Psychoanalytic-Thought/dp/0465014054/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342420993&sr=1-1&keywords=freud+and+beyond

If you are looking for learning from a medical student's point of view with cases, then try Blueprints Clinical Cases in Psychiatry or other similar books. Another excellent author is David Robinson, who has written a series of books (on personality disorders and mental status exams, along with other topics), one example is:
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Reel-Portrayals-Psychiatric-Conditions/dp/1894328299/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342420783&sr=8-2&keywords=reel+to+real+robinson

A fantastic series of books is the American Psychiatric Publishing Concise Guides series. The topics range from Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, to Psychopharmacology, to Addictions:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=american+psychiatric+publishing+concise+guide&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Aamerican+psychiatric+publishing+concise+guide

A lot of non-medication related work in related fields is written by psychologists or other allied health care staff. If you are interested in different modalities of treatment then different authors come to mind. One example is Nancy Mcwilliams - a gifted author and psychotherapist, but may be a bit of a harder read as it is more didactic and meant to be much more educational than Yalom's Love's Executioner.

With respect to fiction, then medical school classics are The House of God by Samuel Shem, and the psychiatric-focused follow up, Mount Misery.

Let me know if I can recommend anything more specific.

If you are in the UK/Europe I would highly recommend the British Association of Psychopharmacology masterclasses or postgraduate courses. Here is a link to a list of psychopharmacology journals sorted by popularity. Go to the library and regularly get into the habit of reading at least the review articles.

Although again it is UK focussed, The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines is an excellent resource for practical features of various drugs, especially for things that might be outside guidelines or off the wall. Stahl's Prescribers Guide is similar and his two volume case studies textbooks are fantastic for practical "real world" tips.

For neuroscience of psychiatric diseases, I found this book really helpful when I was in training.

Not exactly a psychiatric nurse but elyn saks has schizophrenia and she did something similar (link below with her book) I highly recommend reading her book because part of her inspiration for writing it was for people who have a diagnosis of schizoprenia. She is absolutely brilliant and highlights some of her difficulties.

https://www.amazon.com/Center-Cannot-Hold-Journey-Through/dp/1401309445

I find certain things helpful to get my diagnosis across in an acceptable manner: 1) Once I'm confident of my impression regarding a diagnosis of BPD, I would pull out a rating scale such as the Borderline Personality Questionnaire and go through it with them to lend more of a "scientific" feel to the process (but I wouldn't pull this out early on in the process as it may alienate the patient); 2) I usually give them printed material regarding the diagnosis, such as this one from Spectrum Australia; and 3) I tell them to watch the movie Girl, Interrupted (or read the book on which it is based) with instructions to see if they identified with the titular character.

If you want to buy them something they'll use on a regular basis, try a nice pen. Psych tends to be a specialty where handwritten notes are still the norm and having a nice pen to write them with is an enjoyable experience.

Here's my recommendations:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Platinum-No-3776-Century-Slip-Fountain/dp/B005KE5ZWO.

https://www.amazon.com/TWSBI-ECO-Fountain-Pen-White/dp/B011M8HXQ2

A couple of my recent favourites:

Neurotribes by Silberman - interesting and easy read on the history of Autism/Aspergers

Stuff by Frost - entertaining book around the history and current theories of hoarding

Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology provides a wonderfully detailed background to disorders and meds: https://www.amazon.com/Stahls-Essential-Psychopharmacology-Neuroscientific-Applications/dp/1107686466

Also, Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology-Prescribers Guide is a pretty useful clinical handbook: https://www.amazon.com/Prescribers-Guide-Stahls-Essential-Psychopharmacology/dp/1316618137/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1316618137&pd_rd_r=401c320d-e9d7-11e8-b8bf-2d5ac68107a8&pd_rd_w=MuVum&pd_rd_wg=pWcoB&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=6725dbd6-9917-451d-beba-16af7874e407&pf_rd_r=64E9CSETY8NTEVKCH2N3&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=64E9CSETY8NTEVKCH2N3

Also pretty sure there is a Stahl's guide to child/adolescent psych, but I haven't read it.

So I think you are looking more for a psychological framework of mind, cognition, and behavior. However, I will add a good starting point for the philosophy of mind. Philosophy of Mind: a guide and anthology, is the text that was used in my Philosophy of Mind class in undergrad. It is a selection of writings from some of the greatest minds in philosophy. You can think of the philosophy of mind as kind of a meta-science, examining the basic foundations of our theories.

Although older, Bruce Cohen's general textbook is VERY well-written and a good solid intro that I still recommend to MS 3's and 4's.
https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Practice-Psychiatry-Bruce-Cohen/dp/0195149386

I'm not sure if you're aware of the debate in the psychiatric community around that "rule" and our current situation with Trump. Many highly educated, thoughtful, professional, and dedicated psychiatrists consider it a public duty to warn about Trump's rather obviously extremely disordered personality. I say this as a member of that community.

ETA: https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Case-Donald-Trump-Psychiatrists/dp/1250212863/ref=dp_ob_title_bk