Using DSM-IV

In Using DSM-IV, Dr. Anthony LaBruzza and Jose Mendez-Villarrubia offer the needed supplement to DSM-IV. Their book, a veritable road map for DSM-IV, explains the technical language and hierarchical classifications of DSM-IV while it demonstrates how the system can be adapted to a clinical approach. In cogent prose replete with examples, the authors show how to use DSM-IV to arrive at accurate diagnoses that include, rather than forsake, dynamic conceptualizations of clients' psychological functioning.

The authors review each DSM-IV diagnostic category, helping the reader to see what clients with a specific pathology look like, what is actually needed to qualify for the disorder, and what similar disorders to rule out. Because theirs is a fundamentally humane and clinical approach to mental illness, LaBruzza and Mendez-Villarrubia suggest that any interview, even a mental status exam, should be a helpful experience for the client. They show how to embed a diagnostic interview in an ongoing clinical process and thus relate to and understand each client as unique, even while finding the right diagnostic category for him or her.

This attunement to individuals also enables LaBruzza and Mendez-Villarrubia to consider issues of cultural diversity. Both authors have extensive experience working with Hispanic populations and have included an in-depth chapter on assessing Hispanic clients.

. In this new era of managed health care, the demand for uniform, accurate diagnoses has never been higher. Facility with the DSM-IV system is imperative. But so too is a thoughtful understanding of clients. Using DSM-IV is the one resource that can help clinicians combine descriptive and dynamic orientations to clients to produce a truly comprehensive diagnosis. As an explanatory and inclusive manual of DSM-IV, this is the essential book.