The Family Guide to Mental Health Care


Book Description

Advice on Helping Your Loved Ones, from the medical director of the country's largest state mental health system and the mental health editor of The Huffington Post More than fifty million people a year are diagnosed with some form of mental illness. It spares no sex, race, age, ethnicity, or income level. And left untreated, mental disorders can devastate our families and communities. Family members and friends are often the first to realize when someone has a problem, but it is hard to know how to help or where to turn. Our mental health “system” can feel like a bewildering and frustrating maze. How can you tell that someone has a mental illness? What are the first and best steps for you to take? Where do you go to find the right care? The Family Guide to Mental Health Care is the first comprehensive print resource for the millions of people who have loved ones suffering from some kind of mental illness. In this book, families can find the answers to their most urgent questions. What medications are helpful and are some as dangerous as I think? Is there a way to navigate privacy laws so I can discuss my adult daughter’s treatment with her doctor? Is my teenager experiencing typical adolescent distress or an illness? From understanding depression, bipolar illness and anxiety to eating and traumatic disorders, schizophrenia, and much more, readers will learn what to do and how to help. Real-life scenarios and authoritative information are written in a compassionate, reader-friendly way, including checklists to bring to a doctor’s appointment so you can ask the right questions. For readers who fear they will never see the light at the end of the tunnel, this book gives hope and a path forward. As one of the nation’s leading voices on quality care in mental health, Dr. Lloyd Sederer has played a singular role in advancing services for those with mental illness. Now, the wealth of his expertise and clear guidance is at your disposal. From the first signs of a problem to sorting through the variety of treatment options, you and your family will be able to walk into a doctor’s office know what to do and what to ask.




A Beginner's Guide to Being Mental


Book Description

A comprehensive guide to mental health from one of the UK's foremost experts. An A-Z from Anxiety to Zero F**ks Given. ‘Am I normal?’ ‘What’s an anxiety disorder?’ ‘Does therapy work?’ These are just a few of the questions Natasha Devon is asked as she travels the UK campaigning for better mental health awareness and provision. Here, Natasha calls upon experts in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and anthropology to debunk and demystify the full spectrum of mental health. From A (Anxiety) to Z (Zero F**ks Given – or the art of having high self-esteem) via everything from body image and gender to differentiating ‘sadness’ from ‘depression’. Statistically, one in three of us will experience symptoms of a mental illness during our lifetimes. Yet all of us have a brain, and so we ALL have mental health – regardless of age, sexuality, race or background. The past few years have seen an explosion in awareness, yet it seems there is still widespread confusion. A Beginner's Guide to Being Mental is for anyone who wants to have this essential conversation, written as only Natasha - with her combination of expertise, personal experience and humour - knows how.




Bedlam


Book Description

A psychiatrist and award-winning documentarian sheds light on the mental-health-care crisis in the United States. When Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg trained as a psychiatrist in the late 1980s, the state mental hospitals, which had reached peak occupancy in the 1950s, were being closed at an alarming rate, with many patients having nowhere to go. There has never been a more important time for this conversation, as one in five adults--40 million Americans--experiences mental illness each year. Today, the largest mental institution in the United States is the Los Angeles County Jail, and the last refuge for many of the 20,000 mentally ill people living on the streets of Los Angeles is L.A. County Hospital. There, Dr. Rosenberg begins his chronicle of what it means to be mentally ill in America today, integrating his own moving story of how the system failed his sister, Merle, who had schizophrenia. As he says, "I have come to see that my family's tragedy, my family's shame, is America's great secret." Dr. Rosenberg gives readers an inside look at the historical, political, and economic forces that have resulted in the greatest social crisis of the twenty-first century. The culmination of a seven-year inquiry, Bedlam is not only a rallying cry for change, but also a guidebook for how we move forward with care and compassion, with resources that have never before been compiled, including legal advice, practical solutions for parents and loved ones, help finding community support, and information on therapeutic options.




The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health


Book Description

An unapologetic exploration of the Black mental health crisis—and a comprehensive road map to getting the care you deserve in an unequal system. We can’t deny it any longer: there is a Black mental health crisis in our world today. Black people die at disproportionately high rates due to chronic illness, suffer from poverty, under-education, and the effects of racism. This book is an exploration of Black mental health in today’s world, the forces that have undermined mental health progress for African Americans, and what needs to happen for African Americans to heal psychological distress, find community, and undo years of stigma and marginalization in order to access effective mental health care. In The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health, psychologist and African American mental health expert Rheeda Walker offers important information on the mental health crisis in the Black community, how to combat stigma, spot potential mental illness, how to practice emotional wellness, and how to get the best care possible in system steeped in racial bias. This breakthrough book will help you: Recognize mental and emotional health problems Understand the myriad ways in which these problems impact overall health and quality of life and relationships Develop psychological tools to neutralize ongoing stressors and live more fully Navigate a mental health care system that is unequal It’s past time to take Black mental health seriously. Whether you suffer yourself, have a loved one who needs help, or are a mental health professional working with the Black community, this book is an essential and much-needed resource.




Selected Mental Health Films


Book Description




When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder


Book Description

If your teen has an eating disorder—such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating—you may feel helpless, worried, or uncertain about how you can best support them. That’s why you need real, proven-effective strategies you can use right away. Whether used in conjunction with treatment or on its own, this book offers an evidence-based approach you can use now to help your teen make healthy choices and stay well in body and mind. When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder will empower you to help your teen using a unique, family-based treatment (FBT) approach. With this guide, you’ll learn to respectfully and lovingly oversee your teen’s nutritional rehabilitation, which includes helping to normalize eating behaviors, managing meals, expanding food flexibility, teaching independent and intuitive eating habits, and using coping strategies and recovery skills to prevent relapse. In addition to helping parents and caregivers, this book is a wonderful resource for mental health professionals, teachers, counselors, and coaches who work with parents of and teens with eating disorders. It clearly outlines the principles of FBT and the process of involving parents collaboratively in treatment. As a parent, feeding your child is a fundamental act of love—it has been from the start! However, when a child is affected by an eating disorder, parents often lose confidence in performing this basic task. This compassionate guide will help you gain the confidence needed to nurture your teen and help them heal.




A Guide to Starting Psychotherapy Groups


Book Description

How does a therapist go about starting a psychotherapy group? In this practical guide the reader finds the elements, both attitudinal and procedural, needed for starting a therapy group. The processes of obtaining referrals, selecting clients, orienting and educating clients, and preparing clients for psychotherapy are covered in clear step-by-step procedures. Tables and charts are provided for the necessary record keeping. The initial chapters detail the important stages leading up to the first therapy session. Eminent group therapists present special chapters on various therapeutic approaches. The topics of terminating groups and the role of the therapist close this pragmatic guide to therapy groups. A Guide to Starting Psychotherapy Groups assists psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, nurse clinicians, pastoral counselors, school and college counselors and other trained therapists in the process of forming and maintaining groups. - Steps for getting groups started, beginning with first mention of group therapy to clients - Clarification of differing theoretical approaches to doing groups - Helpful guides for tracking referrals and billing - Analysis of group psychotherapy's effectiveness - Attention to special groups and co-therapy leadership - Authoritative articles by international leaders in group psychotherapy




Black Mental Health Matters


Book Description

In Black Mental Health Matters, renowned Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Aaren Snyder uses years of experience to increase mental health awareness in the black community, through captivating real-life stories and simple, down-to-earth explanations of complex psychological problems that impact the black community.




Movies and Mental Illness


Book Description

The clinical chapters of this book each use a case history along with synopses and scenes from one or two specific, often well known films to explain and teach students about the most important disorders encountered in clinical practice.




Ben Behind His Voices


Book Description

When readers first meet Ben, he is a sweet, intelligent, seemingly well-adjusted youngster. Fast forward to his teenage years, though, and Ben's life has spun out of control. Ben is swept along by an illness over which he has no control—one that results in runaway episodes, periods of homelessness, seven psychotic breaks, seven hospitalizations, and finally a diagnosis and treatment plan that begins to work. Schizophrenia strikes an estimated one in a hundred people worldwide by some estimates, and yet understanding of the illness is lacking. Through Ben's experiences, and those of his mother and sister, who supported Ben through every stage of his illness and treatment, readers gain a better understanding of schizophrenia, as well as mental illness in general, and the way it affects individuals and families. Here, Kaye encourages families to stay together and find strength while accepting the reality of a loved one's illness; she illustrates, through her experiences as Ben's mother, the delicate balance between letting go and staying involved. She honors the courage of anyone who suffers with mental illness and is trying to improve his life and participate in his own recovery. Ben Behind His Voices also reminds professionals in the psychiatric field that every patient who comes through their doors has a life, one that he has lost through no fault of his own. It shows what goes right when professionals treat the family as part of the recovery process and help them find support, education, and acceptance. And it reminds readers that those who suffer from mental illness, and their families, deserve respect, concern, and dignity.