The 'Our Encounters with - ' series collect together unnmediated, unsanitised narratives by mental health service-users, psychiatric survivors and carers.
The 'Our Encounters with - ' series collect together unnmediated, unsanitised narratives by mental health service-users, psychiatric survivors and carers.
The book takes a new look at self-harm, focusing particularly on the under-explored area of hidden' self-harming behaviour. These behaviours may not be immediately identifiable as self-harm by counsellors, therapists or their clients, but Turp shows how recognition and understanding of hidden self-harm can improve practice with those affected.
Fundamentals of Mental Health Nursing is an accessible evidence-based introduction to the role of the mental health nurse. This comprehensive overview explores concepts of mental health and distress, ethics and accountability, key nursing models to be aware of, and the prevalence, predisposing factors and features of the most commonly occurring mental health problems. KEY FEATURES: Places mental health conditions and interventions within a wider holistic context Situates recovery at the centre of mental health nursing practice Links key concepts to mental health across the lifespan Contains learning outcomes in each chapter and includes vignettes, activities and reflective exercises to root concepts in real life practice Information is placed in a practice context from the outset, making this an essential guide to both the theory and the practice of mental health nursing. It is ideal for students on courses relating to mental health care, as well as for registered nurses and health care practitioners looking to revise their knowledge of key concepts. www.wiley.com/go/fundamentalsofmentalhealth Interactive multiple-choice questions Links to online resources Chapter summary sheets
Falling Into the Fire is psychiatrist Christine Montross’s thoughtful investigation of the gripping patient encounters that have challenged and deepened her practice. The majority of the patients Montross treats in Falling Into the Fire are seen in the locked inpatient wards of a psychiatric hospital; all are in moments of profound crisis. We meet a young woman who habitually commits self-injury, having ingested light bulbs, a box of nails, and a steak knife, among other objects. Her repeated visits to the hospital incite the frustration of the staff, leading Montross to examine how emotion can interfere with proper care. A recent college graduate, dressed in a tunic and declaring that love emanates from everything around him, is brought to the ER by his concerned girlfriend. Is it ecstasy or psychosis? What legal ability do doctors have to hospitalize—and sometimes medicate—a patient against his will? A new mother is admitted with incessant visions of harming her child. Is she psychotic and a danger or does she suffer from obsessive thoughts? Her course of treatment—and her child’s future—depends upon whether she receives the correct diagnosis. Each case study presents its own line of inquiry, leading Montross to seek relevant psychiatric knowledge from diverse sources. A doctor of uncommon curiosity and compassion, Montross discovers lessons in medieval dancing plagues, in leading forensic and neurological research, and in moments from her own life. Beautifully written, deeply felt, Falling Into the Fire brings us inside the doctor’s mind, illuminating the grave human costs of mental illness as well as the challenges of diagnosis and treatment. Throughout, Montross confronts the larger question of psychiatry: What is to be done when a patient’s experiences cannot be accounted for, or helped, by what contemporary medicine knows about the brain? When all else fails, Montross finds, what remains is the capacity to abide, to sit with the desperate in their darkest moments. At once rigorous and meditative, Falling Into the Fire is an intimate portrait of psychiatry, allowing the reader to witness the humanity of the practice and the enduring mysteries of the mind
"Jack Caldwell was born and raised a polite Southern gentleman, but he carries a dark secret. By day, he is a tough MMA fighter. By night, he transforms into Master Jack, a Dom known for his quick temper. Sweet Penny Worthington has been training at the gym with Jack for a while, but is curious when she sees him sneaking into a BDSM dungeon. Hiding secrets of her own, she knows she wants to be dominated by Master Jack. He is afraid to hurt her, but how could he deny her?"--
It’s a troubling phenomenon that many of us think of as a modern psychological epidemic, a symptom of extreme emotional turmoil in young people, especially young women: cutting and self-harm. But few of us know that it was 150 years ago—with the introduction of institutional asylum psychiatry—that self-mutilation was first described as a category of behavior, which psychiatrists, and later psychologists and social workers, attempted to understand. With care and focus, Psyche on the Skin tells the secret but necessary history of self-harm from the 1860s to the present, showing just how deeply entrenched this practice is in human culture. Sarah Chaney looks at many different kinds of self-injurious acts, including sexual self-mutilation and hysterical malingering in the late Victorian period, self-marking religious sects, and self-mutilation and self-destruction in art, music, and popular culture. As she shows, while self-harm is a widespread phenomenon found in many different contexts, it doesn’t necessarily have any kind of universal meaning—it always has to be understood within the historical and cultural context that surrounds it. Bravely sharing her own personal experiences with self-harm and placing them within its wider history, Chaney offers a sensitive but engaging account—supported with powerful images—that challenges the misconceptions and controversies that surround this often misunderstood phenomenon. The result is crucial reading for therapists and other professionals in the field, as well as those affected by this emotive, challenging act.
“Drawing on research, theory and survivor wisdom, A Psychosocial Understanding of Self Injury and Trauma provides a clear, down-to-earth and practical guide to supporting people who self-injure.” Helen Spandler, Professor of Mental Health, UCLan UK; Editor, Asylum: the radical mental health magazine “This is a very welcome book, which is authoritative and engaging in equal measure.” Andrew Reeves, Professor in Counselling Professions and Mental Health, The University of Chester, UK “In this accessible and instructive book Long has made excellent use of her inter-disciplinary knowledge to invite readers to engage with critical thought around self-injury.” Fiona Stirling, Lecturer in Counselling, Abertay University, UK “Maggie Long’s wise and humane study of self-injury offers an important contribution to understanding how personal wounds may come to be ‘written on the body’.” Liz Frost, Co-editor of Journal of Psychosocial Studies; Associate Professor of Social Work, UWE, Bristol, UK This book is a key resource for any student or practitioner in the helping professions who wishes to develop a holistic understanding of self-injury. Debunking common myths and stereotypes, Long uses an interdisciplinary approach to help readers understand the people behind the symptoms. The impact of interpersonal, societal, and intergenerational trauma is considered in depth, as are the key practical implications for research, policy and practice this understanding of self-injury brings. Though primarily aimed at Counselling and Psychotherapy students, Long considers the challenging processes of help-seeking more broadly, providing useful strategies for responding to self-injury disclosures for practitioners in a range of roles where counselling skills are used, including those in Social Work, Youth Work, Teaching and Nursing. Maggie Long is a lecturer at Ulster University, Ireland. Her work is cross-border and interdisciplinary, drawing on her background in both sociology and counselling.
Born the child of a homo and a hypochondriac (Okay, okay. Her dad’s not really a homosexual. He just acts like it. Her mom, however, really is a hypochondriac), Sara Barron never stood a chance of being normal. At age eleven, she starts writing porn (“He humped me wildly with his wiener”). At twelve, she gets mistaken for a trannie. The pre-op sort, no less. By seventeen, she's featured on the Jerry Springer Show. And that’s all before she hits New York. People Are Unappealing tells the strange, funny, and sometimes filthy stories of Sara Barron’s twisted suburban upbringing and deranged attempt at taking the Big Apple by storm–first as an actor (then a waiter), then a dancer (then a waiter), then a comic (then a waiter). It’s there that she meets the ex-boyfriend turned street clown. The silk pajama-clad poet. The OCD Xanax addict who refuses to have sex wearing any fewer than three condoms. Barron has a knack for attracting the unattractive. People Are Unappealing is her wickedly funny look at the dark side of humanity.