Psychological Therapies In Primary Care

This book deals with effective organization and management of counselling services—a clinical service. It is intended for primary care trust chief executives and directors and commissioners and providers of national health service counselling, pyschological therapy services.

This book equips mental health professionals, students, interns, and post-graduate trainees to work effectively in a primary care setting – which today is the principal site for psychiatric care, behavioral health risk reduction, and psychological treatment of physical or functional complaints such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, fibromyalgia, or irritable bowel syndrome. The primary care setting has a "culture" that is very distinct from more traditional mental health settings, and so the first part of this book teaches professionals and students about the norms, communication styles, social rituals, and roles they need to be familiar with to be effective psychologists.

A comprehensive guide to this emerging field, fully updated to cover clinical, policy, and practical issues with a user-centred approach.

The surge of interest in psychological therapies in GP settings makes this book timely and important for the development of this field in the 21st century. As well as the suggested syllabus for training counsellors and psychotherapists (agreed by the Counselling and Psychotherapy Forum for Primary Care), the book deals with much wider issues. Chapters deal with practitioner issues - both student and professional - management issues, and the provision of supervision and mentoring for the new counsellor as well as planning Continuous Professional Development. Chapters dealing with the history of the remarkable rise in these services help set the context of the rapid development of primary care counselling. The term 'primary care counselling' denotes the context of primary care within which psychological therapies take place and encompasses practitioners from a wide variety of therapeutic traditions. The emphasis throughout is on thorough going preparation of the new counsellor/therapist to meet the proper counselling standards required in primary care practice. It will be of value to students, course providers, counselling practice managers, supervisors as well as those who commission services and general practice doctors.

The surge of interest in psychological therapies in GP settings makes this book timely and important for the development of this field in the 21st century. As well as the suggested syllabus for training counsellors and psychotherapists (agreed by the Counselling and Psychotherapy Forum for Primary Care), the book deals with much wider issues. Chapters deal with practitioner issues - both student and professional - management issues, and the provision of supervision and mentoring for the new counsellor as well as planning Continuous Professional Development. Chapters dealing with the history of the remarkable rise in these services help set the context of the rapid development of primary care counselling. The term 'primary care counselling' denotes the context of primary care within which psychological therapies take place and encompasses practitioners from a wide variety of therapeutic traditions. The emphasis throughout is on thorough going preparation of the new counsellor/therapist to meet the proper counselling standards required in primary care practice. It will be of value to students, course providers, counselling practice managers, supervisors as well as those who commission services and general practice doctors.

Evidence-Based Counselling and Psychological Therapies assesses the impact of the international drive towards evidence-based health care on NHS policy and the provision of the psychological services in the NHS. An outstanding range of contributors provide an overview of evidence-based health care and the research methods that underpin it, demonstrating its effect on policy, provision, practitioners and patients. Their thought-provoking chapters look at a variety of relevant issues including: * generating and implementing evidence * cost-effectiveness issues * practical guidelines * practitioner research Evidence-Based Counselling and Psychological Therapies is essential for mental health professionals and trainees concerned with this movement which is having, and will continue to have a huge impact on the purchasing, provision and practice of health care.

Equips psychologists, mental health professionals, and trainees to work effectively in a primary care setting - the principal site today for psychiatric care, behavioral health risk reduction, and psychological treatment of physical or functional complaints. The primary care setting has a "culture" that is very distinct from more traditional mental health settings, and so the first part of this book teaches both professional clinicians and students about the norms, communication styles, social rituals, and roles they need to be familiar with to be effective psychologists in primary care. Psychological therapies in primary care must be symptom-focused and brief. A broad-based epidemiological perspective is also necessary to address mood and anxiety disorders, medical nonadherence, and health risk behaviors such as alcohol abuse and smoking among a large number of patients. Core chapters in the book therefore describe counseling techniques developed specifically for primary care such as the Four A's and BATHE, the Transtheoretical Model (TM), adaptations of Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Problem-Solving Therapy (PSA), as well as cross-cultural considerations and consultations as a mental health intervention. Equipped with these strategies and a deeper appreciation of primary care culture, readers will be well placed to adapt their clinical skills to this challenging and rewarding health care setting.

Clinical Counselling in Primary Care examines the complexities and variety of uses of clinical counselling employed in a medical setting. With an estimated 2 in 3 GP sugeries now employing a counsellor or refering patients on a regular basis, this book tackles key debates head-on. It discusses a range of important clinical issues such as: * therapeutic framework * clinical work as part of the greater whole * the need to develop suitable therapeutic models. Clinical Counselling in Primary Care looks at possible developments in the future and argues for the improvement of the standing of counselling in relation to other primary care professsions.