Chronic Mental Illness

Bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing guidelines, this text aims to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.

While recent developments in psychopharmacology have been widely disseminated, equally important advances in psychological strategies for severe mental health problems have received less attention. Filling a crucial gap in the literature, this volume brings together leading clinical scientists to present evidence-based approaches for treating schizophrenia, mood disorders, substance use problems, and severe personality disorders. Cutting-edge modalities presented include behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapies, dynamic therapies, interpersonal therapies, couple and family treatments, motivational interviewing, and more. Throughout, step-by-step clinical guidelines are accompanied by illustrative case examples and patient-therapist dialogues. Particular attention is given to strategies for integrating psychological and pharmacological interventions, as well as to gender and cultural issues in treatment.

Chronic Mental Illness: A Living Nightmare A plea for compassion, better understanding, and more funding to help those with mental illness and their caregivers. Eace Bee was a promising young student hoping to become an architect or a rapper when, nearing the end of high school, he was, by his own account, struck down by crippling mental illness. Diagnosed as a severe paranoid schizophrenic, he has for 20-plus years struggled with mood swings that can make him seem menacing, voices from animate and inanimate objects that only he can hear, and behavior patterns that have put him into hospitals again and again. His propensity for not taking his meds hasn't helped. In this unusual book edited by Pickles, Eace; his mother, Priscilla Bee; and his sister, Honey Bee, all debut authors, tell their intimate story of the sheer horror and stigma of mental illness. Priscilla-a teacher and school administrator and a member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-adds numerous recommendations to the narrative. She calls for substantial increases in public spending to train mental health professionals, teachers, counselors, administrators, police, and others who come in contact with mentally ill or at-risk young people. Stronger emphasis is needed, she says, on job programs and early intervention that goes beyond merely funneling students into special education curriculums. For Eace, she says, what is so obviously required is long-term comprehensive care in an open and supportive environment. But her search for such a program has yielded disappointing results. Instead, the care Eace receives has been episodic, disjointed, not especially compassionate, and too often complicated by bureaucratic quagmires. Her point that the historic malady of racism has infected treatment of the mentally ill is well made. Succeeds in helping illuminate the realities of mental illness, what it does to families, and how it is treated-or mistreated.

"This book examines emergent research on the identification and epidemiology of various mental illnesses, featuring information on the prevalence of the disease, psychopharmacological advancements, and strategies for the management of chronic mental illnesses"--

A pioneering book to help maximize the quality of life for chronically ill patients Written by a leading authority on chronic illness treatment and management, Managing Chronic Illness Using the Four-Phase Treatment Approach provides evidence-based practice guidelines for clinicians to help their clients with debilitating health problems embrace a new "normal," understand the cyclical nature of their illness, and function at the highest level possible. Patricia Fennell's groundbreaking model for understanding chronic illness identifies and describes four broad phases experienced by the chronically ill: crisis, stabilization, resolution, and integration. Using a broad array of case histories, Fennell vividly illustrates what clients need at each phase and how to assess and respond to them compassionately. Fennell also suggests how clinicians may best use their own changing experiences in their work to help clients transition through the four phases. The goal of the "Four-Phase Model" is to maximize a client's quality of life without offering false hope for a cure, making it an effective treatment strategy for diverse client populations, including people with physiological diseases; patients whose lives are being prolonged by modern medicine; and people who suffer from addiction, post-traumatic stress syndrome, intractable pain, and post-rape and abuse conditions. Complete with detailed treatment protocols for documenting a client's symptoms and quality of life at each phase, Managing Chronic Illness Using the Four-Phase Treatment Approach is a highly practical book for everyone working with chronically ill clients.

Mental, neurological, and substance use disorders are common, highly disabling, and associated with significant premature mortality. The impact of these disorders on the social and economic well-being of individuals, families, and societies is large, growing, and underestimated. Despite this burden, these disorders have been systematically neglected, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, with pitifully small contributions to scaling up cost-effective prevention and treatment strategies. Systematically compiling the substantial existing knowledge to address this inequity is the central goal of this volume. This evidence-base can help policy makers in resource-constrained settings as they prioritize programs and interventions to address these disorders.

There have always been homeless people in the United States, but their plight has only recently stirred widespread public reaction and concern. Part of this new recognition stems from the problem's prevalence: the number of homeless individuals, while hard to pin down exactly, is rising. In light of this, Congress asked the Institute of Medicine to find out whether existing health care programs were ignoring the homeless or delivering care to them inefficiently. This book is the report prepared by a committee of experts who examined these problems through visits to city slums and impoverished rural areas, and through an analysis of papers written by leading scholars in the field.

From the leading psychiatry department in the world, comes the second edition of this unique, symptom-oriented approach to the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric diseases. Features coverage of all the salient features of psychiatric diseases as well as new emphasis on evidence-based algorithms, psychopharmacological advances, and the pediatric patient.