The eighth edition of this authoritative and highly acclaimed dictionary continues to pursue its goal of keeping readers abreast of new developments in psychiatry. Technological advances have enabled researchers to trace neurotransmission, to uncover the mechanisms of drug action, and to monitor brain activity in real time. Psychiatry has increasingly embraced the neurosciences in studies of learning and memory, sleep and dreaming, and behavioural genetics. There has been cross-fertilization with different fields - among them pharmacology, physiology, biochemistry, and experimental and developmental psychology - and many terms from those disciplines have been incorporated into the Dictionary. This thoroughly revised edition reflects achievements not only in the basic sciences but also in their practical application, as well as changes in the organization and delivery of health care. It covers the full range of treatments for mental illness including psychopharmacologic agents, psychoanalysis, behaviour therapy, cognitive therapy, interpersonal therapy, and other brief therapies. Studies of different forms and combinations of treatments continue to refine and individualize approaches to the particular patient. To make all of this meaningful to mental health professionals and to those outside that field who are interested in what psychiatry is doing to meet the needs of patients, the editor has retained the encyclopaedic approach to the definition of important terms. The eighth edition will be invaluable to psychiatrists and neurologists (and their students and trainees), to psychologists, nurses, social workers, counsellors, lawyers, claims reviewers, and to the lay reader.