by

Peter C. Whybrow, M.D.
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Hagop S. Akiskal, M.D.
University of Tennessee College of Medicine
Memphis, Tennessee

and

William T. McKinney, Jr., M.D.
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine
Madison, Wisconsin

The authors of this outstanding new text present a conceptually integrated approach to mood disorders developed through insights and evidence from psychodynamic, biological, and behavioral perspectives. In this strikingly original synthesis of current knowledge of affective illness, these three perspectives are reviewed within a historical context and carefully woven together. Current explanatory models of mood disorders are also examined. Specific topics covered include issues of classification and diagnosis; the contributions of Freud, Kraepelin, and Meyer; the importance of attachment and the experience of grief; the interface between neurochemical and neuroendocrine mechanisms; neuropsychopharmacology and biogenic amine metabolism; the role of receptor sensitivity in affective illness; the pitfall of the Cartesian mind-body dualism; and the modulating influence of family history, sex, and age, on mood disorders. A special chapter is devoted to the natural laws that govern the interaction of living organisms with their environment, including a section on chronobiology, and those elements of illness that can only be understood within the dimension of time. The authors conclude by considering the implications of a psychobiologic approach to practice, training, and research in the mental sciences.

An original thesis, and one that can serve as a generic paradigm for other psychiatric syndromes, Mood Disorders reviews information and ideas that will be of interest to a broad range of students and practitioners in psychiatry, psychology, social science, and neuroscience.

Cover illustration: Albrecht Durer. Melancholia (1514)

Praise for Mood Disorders

“…a small gem. It tells you nearly everything you need to know about affective illness, and it does so concisely and in readable, graceful prose….I would recommend this book to every residency training program and to the personal library of senior residents and clinicians at all levels.”

— Kenneth Z. Altshuler, M.D.
Contemporary Psychiatry

“This is an unusual work, scholarly, thoughtful…with an unusually broad theoretical outlook.”

— E.S. Paykel, M.D.
American Journal of Psychiatry

“The authors take the psychobiology of Adolf Meyer and develop the theme selectively to include the current array of biological fact and theory….a timely publication as mood control emerges as an important theme, and it will be equally useful in research, in learning, and in teaching on most matters of mood.”

— John Pollitt
British Journal of Psychiatry

“The authors succeed in provoking much needed critical reflection not only on the organization of psychiatric resources, but on our basic assumptions regarding the nature and study of the affective disorders.”

— Aaron T. Beck, M.D.
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry