Desk Reference to the Diagnostic Criteria From DSM-IV-TR

The Desk Reference to the Diagnostic Criteria From DSM-IV-TR® is a concise, affordable companion to the ultimate psychiatric reference, DSM-IV-TR®. It includes all the diagnostic criteria from DSM-IV-TR® in an easy-to-use, spiralbound format. It includes a pull-out chart of the DSM-IV-TR Classification.

Changes were made to the following diagnostic criteria:

• Personality Change Due to a General Medical Condition
• Paraphilias
• Tic Disorders

The main thing that I would like to encourage you to do is to buy this desk reference edition as opposed to the full size edition. Most anything you would need to understand and to make appropriate diagnoses is included in the desk reference. It comes in a size that you can carry around with you wherever you go and is therefore not burdensome like the "full size" DSM. My desk reference has been a "life-saver" many times.


A Must-Have for Psychology Externs/Interns   September 30, 2000
L.R. (New York, NY USA)
59 out of 62 found this review helpful

The Desk Reference to the DSM-IV TR is a small and portable reference book that is easy to carry and easy to comprehend. It is wonderful for psychology externs, interns, & residents who need quick access to DSM diagnoses. It was especially useful to me during the intake interviewing process to help with differential diagnosis. It provides concrete diagnostic criteria for each of the major mental disorders and incorporates the recent text revisions made by the American Psychiatric Association. Highly recommended to anyone in the psychiatric field!


Extremely Useful...Better than the big one   August 4, 2002
drbia (Mountain View, CA United States)
31 out of 32 found this review helpful

I am a psychiatry resident and I find this book extremely useful. Its small, easy to carry around, very user friendly and helps for quick reference in all spheres. Much much better than carrying the larger DSM IV around. I highly recommend this for all mental health professionals.


My constant companion   October 12, 2003
Kelly L. Norman (Plymouth, MI United States)
53 out of 60 found this review helpful

The argument "diagnosis/no diagnosis" should be over with by now. A patient may be treated in a community mental health setting, then in a hospital, then elsewhere. The referring clinician needs to provide information about her difficulty, and diagnosis is a concise and helpful way of doing this. Her care will be paid for by an insurance company or a government entity, which usually (whether we like it or not) will ask for a number to ensure they have a disease that "meets criteria." Careful training in diagnosis is needed to ensure health professionals don't have a cavalier attitude towards the diagnoses they provide; but simply sticking to the criteria outlined in the IV-TR helps ward off such lack of carefulness. It also helps make it more likely that Dr. X in San Francisco is talking about the same thing when he says "schizophrenia, paranoid type" as Dr. Y in Virginia Beach when he says "schizophrenia, paranoid type." Such reliability is essential in our continued research on mental illness and substance abuse.

That said, a clinician in a hospital or clinic setting who needs to understand or determine diagnosis can benefit from both the hardcover versions of the DSM-IV-TR and this spiral bound version. I myself have the hardbound DSM-IV, and instead of purchasing both TR's, simply purchased the spiral-bound DSM-IV-TR. The spiral bound is essential because, with so much use, a glued binding will quickly fall apart. As a clinician currently assigned to a county hospital screening site, I carry my little spiral book everywhere. It fits easily into my purse, but it's not so small that the print is hard to read. There is even a pull-out of all the diagnoses at the beginning that's handy to glance at or tack on the wall.

You will need the hardbound because of the additional information, but if your work requires you to do evaluations in a variety of settings, or even if you know you will be referring to it often and don't want to be bothered getting the big one off the shelf, definitely purchase this one as well.

Kelly L. Norman, ACSW


Student to Counselor   July 28, 2005
N Bar (Central FL, USA)
17 out of 17 found this review helpful

I'll be the first to admit, learning the criteria for all the diagnoses is difficult if not close to impossible. While the DSM is very helpful with all of its background, cultural, and statistics loaded information, it isn't essential for those already in the field. You already had to learn the basics before you completed your degree or licensure program. Now the concern is time and effort. This little guide is easy to navigate through, light-weight, and the spiral bound makes it easy to turn pages to compare between a couple of different classifications (be it BiPolar I Disorder or BiPolar II Disorder). I use this guide everyday at work - and leave that big book sitting on the shelf.