"A commendable volume in which the author condenses information, normally in several locations, into one reading . . . an excellent text for graduate courses on psychological assessment. It . . . familiarizes the student with the entire enterprise of clinical assessment and provides enough of a how-to guide for the student to carry out an assessment practicum."

Contemporary Psychology

"For both practitioners and students of psychological assessment, the expanded and updated Handbook provides guidance to the selection, administration, evaluation, and interpretation of the most commonly used psychological tests."

Reference and Research Book News

The updated and expanded fourth edition of the highly acclaimed classic text on psychological assessment

The Handbook of Psychological Assessment, Fourth Edition presents a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a comprehensive psychological evaluation. It provides a complete review of the most commonly used assessment instruments and the most efficient methods for selecting and administering tests, evaluating data, and integrating results into a coherent, problem-solving report.

Updated reviews and interpretive guidelines are included for the most frequently used assessment techniques, including structured and unstructured interviews, Wechlser® intelligence scales (WAIS®-III/WISC-III®), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2™/MMPI-A™), Millon™ Multiaxial Clinical Inventory-III, California Psychological Inventory™, Rorschach®, Thematic Apperception Test, and frequently used instruments for neuropsychological screening (e.g., Bender Gestalt and Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test). Each test is reviewed according to its history and development, psychometrics, administration, and interpretation of results.

In addition, this revised and expanded Fourth Edition includes:

Japan in World History ranges from Japan's prehistoric interactions with Korea and China, to the Western challenge of the late 1500s, the partial isolation under the Tokugawa family (1600-1868), and the tumultuous interactions of more recent times, when Japan modernized ferociously, turned imperialist, lost a world war, then became the world's second largest economy--and its greatest foreign aid donor. Writing in a lively fashion, Huffman makes rich use of primary sources, illustrating events with comments by the people who lived through them: tellers of ancient myths, court women who dominated the early literary world, cynical priests who damned medieval materialism, travelers who marveled at "indecent" Western ballroom dancers in the mid-1800s, and the emperor who justified Pearl Harbor. Without ignoring standard political and military events, the book illuminates economic, social, and cultural factors; it also examines issues of gender as well as the roles of commoners, samurai, business leaders, novelists, and priests.

Overcoming Teenage Low Mood and Depression uses the trusted Five Areas model of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to help young people experiencing low mood or depression to help themselves. The Five Areas model communicates life skills and key interventions in a clear, pragmatic, and accessible style, by examining five important aspects of our lives:

Life situation, relationships, resources, and problems

Altered thinking

Altered feelings or moods

Altered physical symptoms or sensations

Altered behaviour or activity levels

This exciting collection of practical and effective self-help workbooks has been developed in liaison with a team of experts working with young people. The course provides access to the proven CBT approach, and addresses all the common challenges faced during times of low mood, helping the reader make positive changes in their life in a planned and achievable way. A final workbook aimed at friends and relatives describes how to offer support.

The workbooks also provide an invaluable resource for school teachers, counsellors, general practitioners, nursing staff, occupational therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, youth workers, self-help groups, and other voluntary-sector organisations.

Renowned archaeologist David Wengrow creates here a vivid new account of the "birth of civilization" in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, bringing together within a unified history the first two nations where people created cities, kingdoms, and monumental temples to the gods. But civilization, Wengrow argues, is not exclusively about large-scale settlements and endeavors. Just as important are the ordinary but fundamental practices of everyday life, such as cooking, running a home, and cleaning the body. Tracing the development of such practices, from prehistoric times to the age of the pyramids, Wengrow reveals unsuspected connections between distant regions and provides new insights into the workings of societies we have come to regard as remote from our own. The book obliges us to recognize that civilizations are not formed in isolation, but through the mixing and borrowing of culture between different societies. It concludes by drawing telling parallels between the ancient Near East and more contemporary attempts to reshape the world according to an ideal image.