Neuroscience for the Mental Health Clinician Book Review

Neuroscience for the Mental Health Clinician is a concise and creative introduction to clinical neuroscience. I was first introduced to this book as a supplemental text for my clinical neuroscience class. The book is divided into two sections: (1) basic principles of neuroscience (50% of book) and (2) neuroscience of mental disorders (50% of book). This book targets practicing mental health professionals including nurse practitioners and psychiatrists. Majority of the book is text, with a few black and white images. There are two pages of colored images in the center of the book. What I found most unique about this book is that starting in the first chapter, the author encourages readers to draw the brain structures as they read. The author provides a simple and easily reproducible sketch of the basic structures of the brain. As I read the book, I was able to use these doodles to teach myself simple relationships between structures and function, and I haven’t forgotten them since! This book also clearly and succinctly elucidates neurotransmitter pathways, which were somewhat more convoluted in other clinical neuroscience books I have read. The biggest downside to this book is the lack of full color images. I wouldn’t recommend this as a standalone clinical neuroscience textbook; however, as a supplemental text this book definitely provides an adequate overview of the neurobiology of individual disorders: depression, mania, anxiety, personality disorders, and ADHD.