Psychosis Under Discussion: How We Talk About Madness examines the ways in which psychosis is discussed by considering the relationship between language and the perception of mental disorder. A wide range of perspectives is discussed – including historical terms, personal accounts, psychiatric terminology, psychoanalysis and later theoretical analyses, advocacy, anti-psychiatry, slang and humour, and media coverage – and each way of discussing psychosis is revealing. For example, psychiatric terminology and related research, in its efforts to understand and clarify can seem distancing, dispassionate, and too sure of its ground, whereas the language of advocacy, while being supportive and sensitive, can also seem euphemistic and evasive. In the discourse of mental disorder, both the content of views and the manner in which they are expressed are influential, making it important to take into account both. Psychosis Under Discussion puts these and other important issues under the microscope. International in range, the book’s analysis draws on psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, linguistics and history. Written in Michael Farrell’s well-known clear and direct style, the book is essential reading for all those interested in understanding mental disorder and the role of language.

This manual attempts to provide simple, adequate and evidence-based information to health care professionals in primary health care especially in low- and middle-income countries to be able to provide pharmacological treatment to persons with mental disorders. The manual contains basic principles of prescribing followed by chapters on medicines used in psychotic disorders; depressive disorders; bipolar disorders; generalized anxiety and sleep disorders; obsessive compulsive disorders and panic attacks; and alcohol and opioid dependence. The annexes provide information on evidence retrieval, assessment and synthesis and the peer view process.

This book offers a new approach to understanding and treating psychotic symptoms using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT for Psychosis shows how this approach clears the way for a shift away from a biological understanding and towards a psychological understanding of psychosis. Stressing the important connection between mental illness and mental health, further topics of discussion include: the assessment and formulation of psychotic symptoms how to treat psychotic symptoms using CBT CBT for specific and co-morbid conditions CBT of bipolar disorders. This book brings together international experts from different aspects of this fast developing field and will be of great interest to all mental health professionals working with people suffering from psychotic symptoms.

The new edition of this popular handbook has been thoroughly updated to include the latest data concerning treatment of first-episode patients. Drawing from their experience, the authors discuss the presentation and assessment of the first psychotic episode and review the appropriate use of antipsychotic agents and psychosocial approaches in effective management.

These guidelines from NICE set out clear recommendations, based on the best available evidence, for health care professionals on how to work with and implement physical, psychological and service-level interventions for people with various mental health conditions.The book contains the full guidelines that cannot be obtained in print anywhere else. It brings together all of the evidence that led to the recommendations made, detailed explanations of the methodology behind their preparation, plus an overview of the condition covering detection, diagnosis and assessment, and the full range of treatment and care approaches. There is a worse prognosis for psychosis and schizophrenia when onset is in childhood or adolescence, and this new NICE guideline puts much-needed emphasis on early recognition and assessment of possible psychotic symptoms. For the one-third of children and young people who go on to experience severe impairment as a result of psychosis or schizophrenia the guideline also offers comprehensive advice from assessment and treatment of the first episode through to promoting recovery.This guideline reviews the evidence for recognition and management of psychosis and schizophrenia in children and young people across the care pathway, encompassing access to and delivery of services, experience of care, recognition and management of at-risk mental states, psychological and pharmacological interventions, and improving cognition and enhancing engagement with education and employment.

Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.

This book argues that the experience of 'madness' is an integral part of what it is to be human, and that greater focus on subjective experiences can contribute to professional understandings and ways of helping those troubled by these experiences.

In Loss of Self in Psychosis: Psychological Theory and Practice Simon Jakes takes a critical look at contemorary approaches to the psychology of psychosis. In doing so, he explores how these vastly different approaches, as well as our numerous conceptualisations of schizophrenia, work to reduce the effectiveness of CBT as a treatment. Four different psychological approaches to psychosis are examined in the first part of this book, as well as the development of CBT for psychosis and the theory behind this. In the second part, he describes the therapy of some clients and suggests that incorporating ideas from some of the different theories of psychosis in the same treatment may be beneficial. Using extended examples from clinical practice over the past 20 years to illuminate his theories, Loss of Self in Psychosis: Psychological Theory and Practice will prove to be thought-provoking reading for clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals working with this client group.

The Psychotic Wavelength provides a psychoanalytical framework for clinicians to use in everyday general psychiatric practice and discusses how psychoanalytic ideas can be of great value when used in the treatment of seriously disturbed and disturbing psychiatric patients with psychoses, including both schizophrenia and the affective disorders. In this book Richard Lucas suggests that when clinicians are faced with psychotic patients, the primary concern should be to make sense of what is happening during their breakdown. He refers to this as tuning into the psychotic wavelength, a process that allows clinicians to distinguish between, and appropriately address, the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality. He argues that if clinicians can find and identify the psychotic wavelength, they can more effectively help the patient to come to terms with the realities of living with a psychotic disorder. Divided into five parts and illustrated throughout with illuminating clinical vignettes, case examples and theoretical and clinical discussions, this book covers: the case for a psychoanalytical perspective on psychosis a historical overview of psychoanalytical theories for psychosis clinical evidence supporting the concept of a psychotic wavelength the psychotic wavelength in affective disorders implications for management and education. The Psychotic Wavelength is an essential resource for anyone working with disturbed psychiatric patients. It will be of particular interest to junior psychiatrists and nursing staff and will be invaluable in helping to maintain treatment aims and staff morale. It will also be useful for more experienced psychiatrists and psychoanalysts.

Psychosis as a Personal Crisis seeks to challenge the way people who hear voices are both viewed and treated. This book emphasises the individual variation between people who suffer from psychosis and puts forward the idea that hearing voices is not in itself a sign of mental illness. In this book the editors bring together an international range of expert contributors, who in their daily work, their research or their personal acquaintance, focus on the personal experience of psychosis. Further topics of discussion include: accepting and making sense of hearing voices the relation between trauma and paranoia the limitations of contemporary psychiatry the process of recovery. This book will be essential reading for all mental health professionals, in particular those wanting to learn more about the development of the hearing voices movement and applying these ideas to better understanding those in the voice hearing community.