Common Mental Health Disorders


Book Description

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.




Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders


Book Description

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.




Yes, You Can Talk about Mental Health at Work


Book Description

This book is for anyone who wants to understand why we need to talk about mental health at work... and how to have constructive dialogue in the workplace.




Work Accommodation and Retention in Mental Health


Book Description

Growing interest in the field of mental health in the workplace among policy makers, clinicians, and researchers alike has been fueled by equal employment rights legislation and increasing disability statistics in mental heath. The importance of addressing this topic is underscored by the fact that depression now ranks second on the hierarchy of occupational disabilities. The problem is compounded by a host of factors, including major difficulties in job retention and productivity experienced by persons with mental health disabilities; younger age and higher education of persons with mental health problems; and labor shortages and an aging workforce in many industrialized countries. In addition, particularly in the United States, the vocational needs of army veterans returning from duty with mental health disorders require system-based solutions and new rehabilitation approaches. The pressure created by these powerful legislative, societal, and economic forces has not been matched by the state of evidence-based practices in the field of employment retention and job accommodation in mental health. Current research evidence is fragmented, limited in scope, difficult to access, and adversely affected by the traditional divide between the fields of psychiatry and psychology on one hand and interdisciplinary employment research and practices on the other. As a result, policy makers, employers, disability compensation systems, and rehabilitation and disability management professionals have been left without a critical "how to" evidence-informed toolbox for occupational practices to accommodate and retain persons with mental health disabilities in the workplace. Currently, no single source of knowledge and research evidence exists in the field that would guide best practices. Yet the need for workplace accommodations for persons with mental health disabilities has been growing and, based on epidemiological trends, is anticipated to grow even more in the future. These trends leave physicians, psychologists, occupational therapists, vocational rehabilitation professionals, disability managers, human resource professionals, and policy makers poorly prepared to face the challenge of integrating and maintaining persons with mental health disabilities in the workplace. The aim of the Handbook is to close the gap between the needs of the professionals and networks that work with or study persons with mental heath disorders in an employment context and the actual knowledge base in the field. The Handbook will be written in language that can easily be understood by readers representing a multitude of disciplines and research paradigms spanning the mental health, rehabilitation, and employment fields of inquiry. The Handbook will contribute an integration of the best quantitative and qualitative research in the field, together with experts’ consensus, regarding effective work retention and accommodation strategies and practices in mental health. The book will consist of five major sections, divided into chapters written by recognized experts in these areas.




Handbook of Mental Health in the Workplace


Book Description

A reference tool to assist researchers and academics in the fields of occupational psychology and human resource management. It includes papers from expert contributors that provide the latest research and up-to-date developments in this area.




Helping Someone with Mental Illness


Book Description

The first thing you need to know is that life isn't over. "The good news," writes Mrs. Carter in Helping Someone with Mental Illness, "is that with proper diagnosis and treatment, the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness can now lead productive lives." Based on Mrs. Carter's twenty-five years of advocacy and the latest data from the Rosalynn Carter Symposia for Mental Illness, her book offers step-by-step information on what to do after the diagnosis: seeking the best treatment; evaluating health-care providers; managing workplace, financial, and legal matters. Mrs. Carter addresses the latest breakthroughs in understanding, research, and treatment of schizophrenia, depression, manic depression, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other mental disorders. She also discusses the emotional and psychological issues in caregiving for people with mental illness and offers concrete suggestions to help erase the prejudice and discrimination based on misinformation about mental illness. Her book is also a rich clearinghouse that guides readers to hundreds of specialized resources, including organizations, hot lines, newsletters, videos, books, websites, and more. From the Trade Paperback edition.




Strengthening Mental Health Through Effective Career Development


Book Description

This book makes the case that career development practice is a mental health intervention, and provides skills and strategies to support career development practitioners in their work. It explores how practitioners do more than help people navigate career paths, they change people's lives in ways that improve mental health and overall well-being.




Social Work Practice in Mental Health


Book Description

'An invaluable resource for social workers in all practice settings, not just mental health, and a core text for social work students.' - Dr Valerie Gerrand, former AASW representative and board member of the Mental Health Council of Australia 'An outstanding and very original contribution to the scholarship on mental health policy, research and service.' - Associate Professor Maria Harries AM, University of Western Australia Developing the skills to work effectively with people who have mental health problems is fundamental to contemporary social work practice. Practitioners face new challenges in a rapidly changing work environment including working with consumers and their families and in multidisciplinary teams. Now, more than ever, social workers need discipline-specific mental health knowledge and training. This second edition of Social Work Practice in Mental Health continues the guiding principles of the first edition - an emphasis on the centrality of the lived experience of mental illness and the importance of embracing both scientific and relational dimensions of practice. The new edition reflects the latest developments in best practice including the emergence of recovery theory and the importance of evidence-based approaches. This is a comprehensive guide to social work practice in specialist mental health settings as well as in other fields of practice, covering the most commonly encountered mental health problems. It features information on assessment, case management, family work and community work, and reveals how the core concerns of social work - human rights, self-determination and relationships with family and the wider community - are also central to mental health practice.




Evaluating Mental Health Disability in the Workplace


Book Description

As many as one in four adults in the workforce will suffer from psychiatric illness in a given year. Such illness can have serious consequences -- job loss, lawsuits, workplace violence—yet the effects of mental health issues on job functioning are rarely covered in clinical training. In addition, clinicians are often asked to provide opinions on an employee’s fitness for work or an evaluation for disability benefits, only to find themselves embroiled in complex legal and administrative conflicts. A unique collaboration between a renowned clinical professor of psychiatry and a noted legal expert, Evaluating Mental Health Disability in the Workplace approaches the topic from two distinct areas: the legal context and issues relevant to disability and disability-related evaluations, and the interplay of factors in the relationship between work and psychiatric illness. From this dual perspective, the authors advocate for higher professional standards ensuring that employers, evaluees, or third parties are provided with the most reliable information. Key features of the book: A robust assessment model of psychological disability in the workplace Practice guidelines for conducting workplace mental health disability evaluations Legal and ethical aspects of employment evaluations, especially as they differ from clinical procedure Examination of the process of psychiatric disability development Issues specific to evaluations for Social Security, Workers’ Compensation, and other disability benefit programs Review of relevant administrative and case law. As an introduction to these complex issues or for the further improvement of evaluation skills, Evaluating Mental Health Disability in the Workplace is a timely reference for psychiatrists, psychologists, forensic mental health specialists, and attorneys in this field.




Individual Placement and Support


Book Description

This comprehensive monograph synthesizes the research on the Individual Placement and Support model of supported employment for people with severe mental illness. It identifies empirical foundations for core principles of the model and reviews the literature on effectiveness, long-term outcomes, cost-effectiveness, generalizability, implementation, and policy implications.