Neuroscience for Psychologists and Other Mental Health Professionals


Book Description

This book presents the latest neuroscience and physiological explanations behind the major diagnostic categories of mental illness—including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, and addiction—and explains the physiological bases that underlie traditional pharmaceutical treatment interventions. Crucially, it integrates current information about brain function with new research on immunology, offering a research-based rationale for viewing the mind and the body as an integrated system. The new information on the physiological bases for behavior explains how lifestyle interventions related to diet, exercise, and interpersonal relationships can have dramatic therapeutic effects on mental health. Of particular note in this book is cutting-edge information on fast-spiking GABA interneurons and the role of NMDA receptors in psychosis, the role of inflammatory processes in mood disorders, and gut microbiota’s influence on inflammation. Beyond the physiology undergirding distress, the book also explores the physiological bases for health and resilience. Students and mental health professionals in social work, counseling, and psychology will learn how the same mechanisms available for overcoming mental anguish can be utilized for achieving life satisfaction. KEY FEATURES: Discusses attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, pediatric bipolar disorder, issues for children in the child welfare system, and advocacy efforts Presents the latest information on the efficacy and side effects of antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiolytics, mood stabilizers, and stimulants Explains the mechanisms through which diet and exercise can influence mood disorders and psychosis Prepares mental health professionals to provide services in primary care settings in the role of the behavioral health professional




Neuroscience for Counsellors


Book Description

This is an invaluable resource for counsellors and therapists looking to reinvigorate their practice and enhance their understanding of clients' needs. Each chapter focuses on different discoveries in neuroscience, explains them in plain English and provides guidance on how to put this knowledge to practical use in the therapy room. It covers specific psychological and neurological diagnoses including bipolar affective disorder, eating disorders and ADHD, as well as other more general issues such as attachment and addiction. The book also contains recommendations backed by evidence from neuroscience for optimum mental health involving nutrition, sleep and exercise, and a comprehensive glossary of technical terms. Presenting the practical applications of neuroscience, this book will be of immeasurable use to counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists, and also of interest to social workers and mental health practitioners.




Neuroscience for Counselors and Therapists


Book Description

Neuroscience for Counselors and Therapists by Chad Luke provides an accessible overview of the structure and function of the human brain, including how the brain influences and is influenced by biology, environment, and experiences. Full of practical applications, this cutting-edge book explores the relationships between recent neuroscience findings and counseling theories and then uses these integrated results to address four categories of common life disturbances: anxiety, depression, stress, and addictions. The book’s case-based approach helps readers understand the language of neuroscience and learn how neuroscience research can enhance their understanding of human thought, feeling, and behaviors.




Neuroscience for the Mental Health Clinician


Book Description

As scientific knowledge grows about the role of the brain in mental disorder, no clinician can afford to be uninformed about neurobiology. This accessible primer provides the basic grounding in neuroscience that all contemporary mental health professionals need. Readers are first guided through the fundamentals of neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and psychiatric genetics. Chapters then illuminate the neurobiological underpinnings of a range of frequently encountered disorders--including ADHD, substance abuse, mood and anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and learning and cognitive problems--giving particular attention to the impact of psychosocial risk factors on the brain. Also examined are ways that both pharmacological and psychological interventions have been shown to alter brain chemistry as they bring about a reduction in symptoms.




Psychotherapy in An Age of Neuroscience


Book Description

Psychotherapy In an Age of Neuroscience is a critique of the neuroscience model that dominates contemporary psychiatric practice. It shows that while the neurosciences have made great advances, this line of research has thus far had little application to the care of patients. It criticizes the over-use of psychopharmacological interventions for common mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and substance use. It examines why many, if not most, psychiatrists are seeing patients for 15-minute "med checks" oriented to current symptoms and DSM criteria, and are not taking the time to become familiar with the lives of their patients. The book shows that effective psychotherapeutic interventions are being under-utilized. It proposes that psychiatric practice include the use of psychotherapies that are brief and evidence-based. While most therapy will need to be carried out by psychologists and other mental health professionals, psychiatrists should take on the most complex and difficult cases that require both medication and therapy. By integrating biological and psychosocial interventions, psychiatrists can regain their reputation for breadth of vision and humanism.




Neuropsychotherapy


Book Description

Neuropsychotherapy is intended to inspire further development and continual empirical updating of consistency theory. It is essential for psychotherapists, psychotherapy researchers, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and mental-health professionals. Profoundly important and innovative, this volume provides necessary know-how for professionals as it connects the findings of modern neuroscience to the insights of psychotherapy. Throughout the book, a new picture unfolds of the empirical grounds of effective psychotherapeutic work. Author Klaus Grawe articulates a comprehensive model of psychological functioning-consistency theory-and bridges the gap between the neurosciences and the understanding of psychological disorders and their treatment. Neuropsychotherapy illustrates that psychotherapy can be even more effective when it is grounded in a neuroscientific approach. Cutting across disciplines that are characteristically disparate, the book identifies the neural foundations of various disorders, suggests specific psychotherapeutic conclusions, and makes neuroscientific knowledge more accessible to psychotherapists. The book's discussion of consistency theory reveals the model is firmly connected to other psychological theoretical approaches, from control theory to cognitive-behavioral models to basic need theories.




The Neurobiology-Psychotherapy-Pharmacology Intervention Triangle


Book Description

This book intends to open the debate between three main aspects of clinical practice: psychotherapy (including psychological and philosophical influences), neurobiology and pharmacology. These three main themes are clinically applied in what we call the “Intervention Triangle”. The book will first focus on epistemologically distinct frameworks and gradually attempt to consider the integration of these three fundamental vertexes of practice. These vertexes are substantially unbalanced in the mental health field, and thus, this book tries to make sense of this phenomenon. Unique in its interdisciplinary and comprehensive view of mental health problems and approaches, this book offers a new perspective on unidisciplinary integration that previous publications have not considered. As an innovative contribution to its field, this volume will be particularly relevant to practitioners working towards integrative frameworks. It will also be of interest to students, clinicians and researchers, in particular, those working in psychology, medicine, psychiatry, philosophy, social work, and pharmacy.




Brain Literacy for Educators and Psychologists


Book Description

Although educators are expected to bring about functional changes in the brain--the organ of human learning--they are given no formal training in the structure, function or development of the brain in formal or atypically developing children as part of their education. This book is organized around three conceptual themes: First, the interplay between nature (genetics) and nurture (experience and environment) is emphasized. Second, the functional systems of the brain are explained in terms of how they lead to reading, writing and mathematics and the design of instruction. Thirdly, research is presented, not as a finished product, but as a step forward within the field of educational neuropsychology. The book differs from neuropsychology and neuroscience books in that it is aimed at practitioners, focuses on high incidence neuropsychological conditions seen in the classroom, and is the only book that integrates both brain research with the practice of effective literacy, and mathematics instruction of the general and special education school-aged populations.




Brain-Based Therapy with Children and Adolescents


Book Description

Designed for mental health professionals treating children and adolescents, Brain-Based Therapy with Children and Adolescents: Evidence-Based Treatment for Everyday Practice is a simple but powerful primer for understanding and successfully implementing the most critical elements of neuroscience into an evidence-based mental health practice. Written for counselors, social workers, psychologists, and graduate students, this new treatment approach focuses on the most common disorders facing children and adolescents, taking into account the uniqueness of each client, while preserving the requirements of standardized care under evidence-based practice.