Many people ignore the signs of impending mental illness simply because they don't know what they're experiencing. Read the book and know. I did. I wish that I had gotten help sooner.

I flipped through this book extensively at the bookstore, as I am in the process of getting a full diagnosis of my own mental "disorders". This book is an excellent reference tool for either a patient or family/friend of the newly diagnosed. As a layman, I did not find it condescending at all (and I'm easily offended!). It basically covers many (50) of the terms you regularly hear in the "psyciatric world" such as 'compulsions', 'paranoia', etc. It's laid out in alphabetical order, and each definition is several pages long, including examples of what a person with that "sign" might experience.

This book does NOT go into specific disorders or labels, such as bipolar disorder, paranoid personality disorder, etc, other than perhaps mentioning which disorders each sign is most commonly associated with (example: the part on 'delusions' might mention schizophrenia). It also does not cover much for treatment, but new treatments come out so quickly that even the newest publication will be out of date by the time it hits the shelves.

This book is probably too simple for anyone who has been walking down the psyciatric road for a while. Even a new layman will quickly want to move on to a more extensive book after seeing this, and possibly just use this as a reminder reference to keep from confusing different "signs".

Another draw back to actually purchasing this is you can easily find all the same information on the internet.