Fish's Clinical Psychopathology: Signs and Symptoms in Psychiatry (4th edn) by Patricia Casey and Brendan Kelly Royal College of Psychiatrists/Cambridge University Press. 2019. £24.99 (Pb). 146 pp. ISBN: 9781108456340

Fish's Clinical Psychopathology is one of the important texts in psychopathology; now in its fourth edition, I had the advantage of reading the original text written by Fish, published in 1967 that was given to me by one of my consultants in my early training. I was pleasantly surprised by the new edition as the philosophical aspects of psychopathology have been updated, using the works of Kendell, Kendler, Sass and Parnas. The discussion regarding classification of psychiatric disorders includes the latest versions of the classification manuals. Another positive aspect is the inclusion of issues such as validity, reliability and utility, comorbidity, and describing monothetic and polythetic approaches.

The structure of the book broadly follows the structure of the original Fish's Clinical Psychopathology. After a discussion about psychopathology and classification there are chapters on disorders of perception, thought and speech, memory, emotion, experience of self and motor disorders. There are additional chapters on disorders of consciousness and personality disorders. The book chapters go into some detail of psychopathological phenomena.

The strength of book is when it discusses disorders of perception, thought, emotion and self. I have found some neuropsychiatry texts more informative when it comes to disorders of memory.

The original Fish's Clinical Psychopathology was less than 130 pages, which was a testament to Frank Fish's ability to convey a significant amount of knowledge in that small volume. Casey & Kelly have managed to keep the book under 150 pages. It is understandable that given the size there will be some limitations, consequently, the book is thin on philosophy.

This book provides an excellent introduction to the field of psychopathology, which has expanded dramatically, and psychiatrists should be encouraged to delve deeper into the field. Psychopathology is a method that enables us to identify symptoms and signs, and distinguish them from one another, and is integral to diagnostic process. As a starting point in studying psychopathology the new edition of Fish's Clinical Psychopathology is a valuable resource.