Because of the stigma often associated with psychiatric illness, many who feel depressed or anxious, or who find they are having a hard time making it through the day without a drink, may resist seeing a psychiatrist.

Although some people are reluctant to see any doctor at all, those with common medical illnesses tend to show up eventually when they develop serious, physical symptoms that make it impossible for them to function. With psychiatric illness, however, patients, including those with serious psychiatric symptoms, often don't recognize anything is wrong, even when they no longer can function. Zorumski and Rubin hope the book helps those patients and their families recognize problems early, to learn how to seek psychiatric care and to become familiar with what treatments might help, keeping in mind that in many cases the therapy can take a while.

"It doesn't matter whether we're talking about major depression - a very common psychiatric illness - or high blood pressure or diabetes," says Zorumski. "Those illnesses don't get cured. They're managed over time. And that's one of the things we really want consumers, and those who have illnesses, to understand. The expectation that a pill or some other form of treatment is going to cure you is really inappropriate, just as it is inappropriate with high blood pressure and other common illnesses."

Source: Washington University School of Medicine