Top 10 Books on Mental Disorders and Clinical Cases

To understand the main mental disorders.

Lists are useful for organizing knowledge. The problem with lists is that they feel either too much (that item shouldn’t be there) or too little (that item wasn’t included). As we have the advantage of being on the internet, we can add whatever is missing and talk about it.

Today, I will make available my list of the 10 most important Books on Mental Disorders. A mental disorder, in a nutshell, is psychological suffering. A patient has a pain, a difficulty, a problem and seeks help.

Professionals who can help you in the health area, such as psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, have a body of knowledge that is psychopathology. If we want to be a little more romantic, we’d say it’s a pain (pathos) of the soul (psyche). So let’s move on to the list:

1) A case of hysteria, by Sigmund Freud –

The case in point is the famous Dora case. Freud treated this hysterical patient between October and December 1900, during which time he was writing the Psychopathology of Everyday Life and shortly after having completed and published his masterpiece The Interpretation of Dreams (link to our courses).

The relevance of the case lies in the total abandonment of previous assumptions and hypnosis and in what we can call the beginning of the psychoanalytic method, in addition to the accurate descriptions of what hysterical neurosis is.

In the edition I have, the Dora case occupies about 100 pages. The volume also includes the Three Essays on Sexuality and other works. It is Volume VII of his Complete Works.

2) Two clinical histories (the “Little Hans” and the “Rat Man”), by Sigmund Freud

A few years later, in 1909, Freud published the case that became known as “Little Hans”. The title of the paper, however, is “Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy”. It is important to point out that Freud did not attend to the boy, but helped in conducting the treatment that was carried out by the child’s father (who was also an analyst). The case exposes in detail what a phobic neurosis is.

See also – Video Course Three Essays on Sexuality

The second clinical history, “The Rat Man,” is, in my opinion, Freud’s most brilliant account of a clinical case. Freud saw this patient for a year. By studying this case, we will learn a lot about what an obsessional neurosis is (which today is called OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). This is Volume X of your Complete Works.

3) The Schreber case, by Sigmund Freud

Just like “Little Hans, Freud did not attend to the patient Schreber. Schreber had written his memoirs in 1903 and from them Freud analyzes a case of psychosis – as we know, Freud did not treat psychotics. The title is “Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)” which was published in 1911.

By reading the Schreber case, we can understand how Freud understood the psychoses and their relationship with the neuroses. Volume XII of Complete Works.

4) Symbols of Transformation, by CG Jung

Jung’s work is little studied in psychology universities. I believe that, in part, because of his writing style, but mainly because professors, as students, normally have no contact with his work and, therefore, do not know enough about it to specialize and teach later.

Unlike Freud, Jung did not publish as many well-delineated clinical cases (here and there he reports parts of cases), but one is especially useful.

The 5th Volume of his Complete Works has the full title Symbols of Transformation – Analysis of the preludes of schizophrenia. As with the Schreber case, Jung did not analyze Miss Miller directly, but through Théodore Flournoy’s work on the Psychologie Archives. Its objective is to show that the contents of a schizophrenia (dreams and visions) appear in similar ways in other manifestations such as religious, mythological, ritual, art and poetry contents.

It was from this book that Jung began to develop, therefore, the concept of the collective unconscious.

5) Depression: Causes and Treatments, Aaron Beck and Brad Alford

This is the most complete book you can find on depression. Interestingly, Beck initially sought to prove Freud’s theses on depression (Mourning and Melancholy) empirically, that is, through group and control group research and operationalizing concepts for diagnosis and tests.

He noticed that it was not possible to carry out this initial project and, with his studies, he began to elaborate a new way of understanding depression and, at the same time, created a whole new approach in psychology, cognitive psychology – which is often linked to the behavioral psychology as cognitive-behavioral therapy.

We study this book here – Video Course – Cognitive Psychology of Depression

6) Cognitive Therapy for Anxiety Disorders, Aaron Beck and David A. Clark

I also believe this is the most complete book you could find on Anxiety. There are two versions: the therapist version and the patient version. The first, evidently, is denser and makes a complete survey of the causes, vulnerabilities and types of anxiety: panic disorder, social phobia, GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and PTSD (stress disorder). post-traumatic).

We study this book here – Video Course – Cognitive Psychology of Anxiety Disorders

The book dedicated to the patient is a kind of self-help, with scientific basis, to help the person who has anxiety, regardless of the type. It is useful for those who are in therapy and also for those who have not yet started.

7) Cognitive Therapy of Schizophrenia, Aaron Beck

Unlike Jung’s book, Beck’s book on Schizophrenia is simpler to understand. He begins by citing the case of John Nasch, portrayed in the movie “A Beautiful Mind”. Despite not being an entire book about a single clinical case, it is a fundamental work to understand schizophrenia and the most recent research concerning the subject.

All of Beck’s books are very clear and didactic, with many clinical examples.

8) Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorder, Aaron Beck et al.

This book addresses several disorders grouped under the acronym of Personality Disorder:

– Paranoid personality disorder

– Schizoid and Schizotypal Personality Disorder

– Antisocial personality disorder

– Borderline Personality Disorder

– Histrionic Personality Disorder

– Narcissistic personality disorder

– Dependent Personality Disorder

– Avoidant personality disorder

– Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

– Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder

9) Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for suicidal patients

Suicide is still a taboo subject. The risk of suicide and attempted suicide turns a clinical case into a serious case that must be treated immediately. Beck points out that, contrary to common sense, suicide is not closely linked to depression. In other words, a depressed patient is not necessarily a suicidal patient. Suicide propensity arises from hopelessness.

10) DSM-5

Although much criticized, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a fundamental book to know the symptomatology and terminology used in the world mainly in psychiatry, in addition to the prevalence, prognosis and treatment.

We study the DSM-5 here – DSM-5 Course: Key Changes

In this text, we talk in detail – What is a Mental Disorder

Conclusion

Our list of the top 10 books on mental disorders and clinical cases contains books on psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, cognitive psychology and behavioral psychology. Insofar as there are other approaches in psychology, we can complete them in the comments, citing other significant works that were left out.

However, I think the above list provides an excellent foundation for anyone wanting to better understand the major mental disorders.

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