The Practitioner's Guide to Psychoactive Drugs, second edition, provides far more for the reader than the title suggests, and was a delight to read. In 12 sections it offers an enormous amount of valuable current information on some of the most frequently prescribed medications.
A chapter on legal issues in prescribing psychoactive drugs not only informs the prescribing physician of the potential pitfalls, but is appropriate and timely in this era of increasing litigation.
There are several features that I found to be particularly valuable and that enabled the reader to focus in on some of the more salient points in the text. These included highlighting sentences and paragraphs in darker print, which was eye catching. Another innovation was blocking out sections in shades of gray with clearly defined margins, permitting the reader a quick summary of the material under discussion. The authors make excellent use of charts and tables,