Two leading schizophrenia researchers present an accessible and comprehensive guide to dealing with the disease. They provide key information on the integration of drugs and psychological treatments and discuss how family members can be a helpful part of the treatment process.
Written by two physicians with decades of clinical and research experience in the field, this volume helps readers face schizophrenia by understanding what it is and how it is managed. Schizophrenia is a devastating illness that affects more than two million Americans. Written to help anyone who is faced with managing schizophrenia, whether as a patient, friend, or family member, this accessible book is an ideal first stop for practical, up-to-date information. It includes an overview of schizophrenic disorder and provides answers to common questions that arise at different phases of the illness. This brief and to-the-point guide focuses on dealing with many aspects of schizophrenia—complying with treatment, managing crises, being a caregiver, communicating with the care team, and coping skills. The book also provides practical approaches to common issues, such as financial support, housing, employment, interacting with the legal system, stress management, socialization, and negative emotions. Included are useful forms, lists, and a comprehensive collection of resources to access help and information. The goal of this book is to assist patients and their loved ones to effectively face schizophrenia, achieve maximal recovery, and enjoy a good quality of life.
Many mentally ill people are the victims of stigma, which leads to additional suffering and humiliation. Negative stereotypes and prejudicial attitudes against them are often reinforced by their media representation as unpredictable, violent and dangerous. Hence the importance of the study of stigma as an explanatory construct of much that transpires in the management of the mentally ill in our societies. This book describes the experience of stigmatization at the level of the individual, and seeks to measure stigma and discrimination from the following perspectives: Self imposed stigma due to shame, guilt and low self esteem; Socially imposed stigma due to social stereotyping and prejudice; and Structurally imposed stigma, caused by policies, practices, and laws that discriminate against the mentally ill. This book briefly describes programmes that aim to reduce such stigma then looks at ways to evaluate their effectiveness. It is the first book to focus on evaluation and research methodologies in stigma and mental health. It also: presents new interventions to reduce stigma describes the various international programmes which help reduce stigma discusses the use of the internet as an international tool to promote awareness of stigma in mental health Understanding the Stigma of Mental Illness is essential reading for clinicians and researchers who wish to apply or develop stigma reduction programmes. It is also a valuable addition to the libraries of political analysts, policy makers, clinicians, researchers, and all those interested in how to approach and measure this distressing social phenomenon.
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 challenges professional and public misconceptions of schizophrenia as an illness with intractable symptoms and inexorable mental deterioration, educating clinicians and researchers on the effectiveness of treatment to change the course of or prevent the onset of illness. The authors illustrate such effectiveness through fifteen case studies examining psychosis in diverse clients. These case studies are divided into the three phases of the illness—prodromal/clinical high risk, first-episode, chronic, and treatment-refractory—with accompanying analyses of the causes, symptoms, interventions and treatments. By depicting patients at different clinical stages of the illness, with accompanying explanations of how they got to that point, what might have been done to avoid – or has been done to achieve – this outcome, the reader will gain an appreciation of the nature of the illness and for the therapeutic potential of currently available treatments. Readers will learn about the various clinical aspects of schizophrenia and treatment including diagnosis, prognosis, clinical presentation, suicide risk, cognitive deficits, stigma, medication management, and psychosocial interventions.
Offering an understanding of postpartum psychosis, this riveting book explains what happens and why during this temporary and dangerous disorder that develops for some women rapidly after childbirth. Most of us are familiar with the baby blues, a passing sadness that strikes 50 to 75 percent of new mothers after delivery. And most of us understand postpartum depression, a sadness post-delivery that lingers for weeks or months for an estimated one in every 10 new mothers. But a more serious form of disorder that strikes up to one in every 500 is postpartum psychosis - triggering severe agitation, confusion, insomnia, hallucinations, delusions, mania, and possible thoughts of suicide or murder. Every year, women in the United States and around the world kill their babies, children, and themselves as a result of this mental illness. Here, author Twomey, an official with Postpartum Support International, gives us insight into the psychological, personal, medical, legal, and historical perspectives on this little-understood mental illness, which is both preventable and treatable. While most women who suffer postpartum psychosis eventually recover without harming anyone, they most often do so in silence. Paranoia is a common symptom, explains Twomey, and that moves women to hide their symptoms from everyone around them. The woman can hence appear normal, but be putting both herself and her baby at risk. We can prevent and treat this, but we need to recognize it by better screening of women postpartum, says Twomey.
Lil' Broken Star Understanding Schizophrenia for Kids Rachel Star talks with lil' star about schizophrenia and how to deal with hallucinations and delusions. Created by diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic Rachel Star Withers who grew up seeing hallucinations of monsters constantly.
Schizophrenia was 20th century psychiatry's arch concept of madness. Yet for most of that century it was both problematic and contentious. This history explores schizophrenia's historic instability via themes such as symptoms, definition, classification and anti-psychiatry. In doing so, it opens up new ways of understanding 20th century madness.
The insight a patient shares into their own psychosis is fundamental to their condition - it goes to the heart of what we understand 'madness' to be. Can a person be expected to accept treatment for a condition that they deny they have? Can a person be held responsible for their actions if those actions are inspired by their own unique perceptions and beliefs - beliefs that no-one else shares? The new edition of this unique book shows how we can better understand the patient's view of their illness, and provides valuable advice for all those involved in the treatment of mental illness.