The Psychiatry Letter

Here is a reading list that I’ve prepared for advanced psychiatric residents who have done rotations with me. I would recommend it for those interested in psychiatry either during medical school or during psychiatry residency or in the first 5-10 years after psychiatry residency. It probably will make the most sense in the latter years of psychiatry residency or afterwards, but the books should not be read once and left aside in any case. They should be read and then read again, at least in part, a few years later with more clinical and life experience. I’ve included my own books. These books reflect my own education; I’m sure there are others that are quite good that I haven’t encountered. I also recommend who not to read, or if you read them, read them to realize what is wrong with psychiatry.

Note: Many books are old. In general, older books that are still around are better than newer books; they have stood the test of time. Don’t be fooled to think newer is better; the opposite is the case. As a rule, don’t read textbooks; they are half false now, and will be proven even more false with time. They represent the current consensus, which science always disproves.

Best overall conceptual books

1. Approaches to the Mind – Leston Havens

2. Perspectives of Psychiatry – Paul McHugh and Philip Slavney

3. Concepts of Psychiatry – Nassir Ghaemi

Approaches (1973) was a groudbreaking book that introduces the ideas of Karl Jaspers to American society, in a historical way and subtly. It provides excellent analyses of the ideas of psychotherapeutic schools and interprets them in a “pluralistic” way which is not what you think pluralism is. Perspectives (1986) applies Jaspers more explicitly and didactically and is more clinical and less historical than Havens. Read the First Edition; it is shorter and much more conceptually clear than later ones. Concepts (2003) combines both books and puts them together, along with providing conceptual context as opposed to more historical (Havens) or clinical (McHugh) approaches.

Don’t read: books mainly on psychoanalysis (that’s like reading Marxism to understand economics), books by most academic philosophers or most other humanities professors (they are usually postmodernist-influenced and limited in scope, without clinical feel), Foucault (e.g., Madness and Civilization; pure postmodernism), most mainstream academic psychiatrists (no names needed; they either just defend the status quo or are intellectually weak, i.e., never mention much less understand thinkers like Jaspers).

Best conceptual or historical books with clinical focus

1. A Way of Life – William Osler

2. A History of Psychiatry – Edward Shorter

3. The Making of DSM-III – Hannah Decker

4. Fish’s Clinical Psychopathology – Max Hamilton

5. Freud and his Followers – Paul Roazen

6. On Depression – Nassir Ghaemi

Osler (1951) is a collection of classic essay on what it means to be a doctor/clinician in the medical humanism tradition. Shorter (1998) and Decker (2013) provide the best documented histories of modern psychiatry. Hamilton (1974) is a short classic on clinical psychopathology, that is better than anything published since then. Roazen (1975) provides the most complete and objective/independent history of Freud and psychoanalysis. On Depression (2013) is my conceptual analysis of the harmful impact of postmodernist ideas on modern psychiatry, with a focus on the clinical psychopathology of depression.

Don’t read: Books by most professors of the humanities, which tend to be very anti-DSM for the wrong reasons, a generically postmodernist outlook on psychiatry. Most standard clinical books on the psychiatric interview and diagnosis, which don’t have any historical depth or conceptual clarity. Any histories of Freud written by psychoanalysts, which have little objectivity.

Best clinical books

1. Goodwin and Guze’s Psychiatric Diagnosis

2. Clinical Psychopharmacology – Nassir Ghaemi

Goodwin and Guze wrote this classic in 1974 and it remains in updated editions (7th edition, 2018). It reflects diagnosis based on science alone, not all of DSM’s socially constructed opinions. Clinical Psychopharmacology (2019) is my description of how to practice clinically with non-DSM, science based diagnoses, applying our drugs to those conditions. There are many other good clinical books on specific diagnoses, like Goodwin and Jamison’s Manic-Depressive Illness (I prefer the First Edition of 1990, which is more concise and conceptually complete) or Gunderson’s Borderline Personality Disorder (the first edition from 1984 is the best).

Don’t read: Anything with the word DSM in the title.

Best psychotherapy books

1. Leston Havens – A Safe Place

2. Leston Havens – Making Contact

These are two of my favorite books, though there are many good ones in this genre. Making Contact (1986) is all about empathy, and includes many clinical tricks and tools. A Safe Place (1989) is overall the best summary of Haven’s clinical approach to psychotherapy, which is largely a good example of a type of existential psychotherapy.

Don’t read: Yalom (overstated, nothing really novel), most psychoanalysts (repetitively the same), most CBT books (usually dry).

Best historical books

1. Lectures on Clinical Psychiatry – Emil Kraepelin

2. General Psychopathology – Karl Jaspers

3. Ego and Id, Civilization and its Discontents – Freud

These are the three giants of psychiatry. Read them if you can, but don’t read them until you’ve read some of the other works. Jaspers (1913, republished 1988) provides a general structure for understanding clinical psychiatry. Kraepelin (1913, republished 1985) shows how to apply his approach to cases. Freud (1923, 1927) is the best writer to explain Freud; no one else comes close. Be careful because he was so prolific. His works from the 1920s are his best, in my opinion.

Don’t read: Any other Freudians about Freud.

The Top Three

If you had to choose only a few books, I would suggest one from each category and my choices for the top three would be:

1. Leston Havens – Approaches to the Mind

2. Edward Shorter – A History of Psychiatry

3. Leston Havens – A Safe Place