Here it is! Prescribing Lithium: Cafer's Psychopharmacology 2nd Edition Series

Pre-publication PDF available to subscribers here

To excel in psychopharmacology, one must master lithium. Patients with mood disorders do best when their provider manages lithium safely and effectively. Research consistently shows that appropriate use improves outcomes, reduces suicide risk, and may even prevent Alzheimer’s disease and extend healthy lifespan.

This is a lithium-centric pharmacology book. Outside of The Lithium Handbook by Meyer & Stahl (2023), reliable prescribing information remains scarce. The FDA package insert is outdated, exposing kidneys to more lithium than necessary if followed literally.

Drug interaction tools further complicate practice, as they vastly overrepresent pharmacodynamic interactions while overlooking some pharmacokinetic ones. In this book, every purported lithium interaction from major checkers has been investigated. The Annotated Glossary serves as a comprehensive starting point for assessing whether a medication interacts.

For psychiatric prescribers, lithium interactions pose a unique challenge: the list of interacting drugs differs markedly from those relevant to our other treatments. Core information about these medications is included — not so you can prescribe them, but so you can understand what your patients receive from other clinicians. For example, if a patient is taking 25 mg of hydrochlorothiazide, this book shows how significant that dose is in a lithium-specific context.

Treatment guidelines are also provided, using Osser’s Psychopharmacology Algorithms (2020) as scaffolding. Evidence-based practice leads naturally to managing a large number of lithium patients — and therefore, their lithium-related side effects. The most consequential is vasopressin resistance (nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, NDI). Competent lithium care requires proficiency with amiloride, the specific antidote.  As amiloride management requires attention to medications that shift serum potassium, this book includes a secondary focus on potassium-modifying drugs.

In short, this book integrates lithium’s evidence base, interaction profiles, treatment guidelines, and side effect management into a unified, practical system. By combining visual mnemonics and detailed prescribing guidance, it is designed to equip clinicians with the skills needed for safe, effective, and enduring lithium care.

The back cover of Prescribing Lithium is not filler or marketing copy — it is core content. This choice reflects the organizing principle of the book: every page is designed to function as a room in a memory palace, not as part of a continuous wall of text with arbitrary breaks. Each page carries intentional formatting, color coding, and focused content, so that every page functions as its own room dedicated to a single concept.

Within this palace, drugs are represented by mascots created from sound-alike mnemonic phrases linking generic and trade names. These mascots are adorned or paired with accessories encoding pharmacodynamic traits — for example, bananas scattered versus bunched to cue potassium-wasting versus potassium-sparing effects. As concepts deepen, mascots evolve into pharmacokinetic interaction avatars: visual frameworks supporting memorization of tens of thousands of drug–drug interactions. Finally, ballicules are introduced, conceptualizing drugs as modified neurotransmitters — for instance, xanomeline depicted as a portion of acetylcholine.

Usability is central. The glossary is annotated with the information you’re most likely to need — for example, how a medication interacts with lithium. Often you won’t need to flip to the referenced page, since the key answer is given in-line. Each glossary item still points to a single dedicated page, and visuals carry reference links that guide you to their explanations or broader context.

When drugs are personified, pharmacology sticks — Visualize to Memorize.

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