Basic Child Psychiatry has once again been rewritten to reflect advances in the field and to ensure that it remains an up-to-date introduction to the subject. Since the publication of the 5th edition, both the 10th edition of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases and the 4th edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) have appeared.

Each of these publications proposes a number of changes in the way child and adolescent psychiatric disorders should be classified. These are fully reflected in the book. They are also discussed when the various clinical conditions are described, providing a completely current view of classification issues.