Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Severe Mental Illness: An Illustrated Guide

Mastering cognitive-behavior therapy for the common, yet difficult-to-treat aspects of severe mental illness has now been made easier with Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Severe Mental Illness. This practical and insightful guide distills into one volume CBT techniques for individual therapy and video demonstrations on DVD that illustrate how these techniques can be used to tackle a wide range of severe clinical problems.

The authors provide a host of functional strategies for treating patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and treatment-refractory depression. Their easy-to-read guide promotes practitioners' skill building -- including how to design useful interventions, provide effective psychoeducation, and engage patients in effective therapeutic relationships. Authoritative and engaging, the authors cover specific symptoms in detail, outlining methods to promote treatment adherence and to help patients prevent relapse, reduce delusional thinking, cope with hallucinations, solve problems unresponsive to medication, and cope with dysfunctional relationships. The eighteen videos depict CBT in action, demonstrating such scenarios as tracing origins of paranoia and formulating an antisuicide plan. Featuring learning exercises, worksheets, and checklists, the book is an ideal companion to the authors' widely used text Learning Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, building on its critically acclaimed methodology to offer proven guidelines for effective treatment.

American Psychiatric Publishing

Mastering cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) for the common, yet difficult-to-treat aspects of severe mental illness has now been made easier with Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Severe Mental Illness. A proven, effective treatment for patients with severe mental illness, CBT is illuminated in an insightful volume that boasts an abundance of learning exercises, worksheets, and checklists—plus video demonstrations on DVD that offer an inside look at CBT methods in use.

This is the only book to present a comprehensive CBT approach that can be used across the broad range of severe Axis I disorders to prevent relapse, promote treatment adherence, reduce symptoms, and maintain treatment gains. The authors, all internationally recognized experts in using CBT for severe mental illness, provide a host of functional strategies for treating patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and treatment-refractory depression. Their easy-to-read guide covers specific symptoms in detail and promotes practitioners’ skill building—including how to design useful interventions, provide effective psychoeducation, and engage patients in effective therapeutic relationships. The eighteen videos show CBT in action, demonstrating such scenarios as tracing origins of paranoia and formulating an antisuicide plan. Readers seeking to learn or improve their use of CBT for severe mental illness will

• Master the key processes of engaging, assessing, normalizing, educating, and formulating
• Learn methods to help patients reduce delusional thinking, cope with hallucinations, and target hopelessness, suicidality, low energy and interest, and poor self-esteem
• Prevent relapse in bipolar disorder through such methods as monitoring symptoms and promoting good sleep
• Address interpersonal problems common in patients with severe mental illness, showing how to build support and cope with dysfunctional or terminated relationships
• Help patients become better organized in their thinking and reduce problems with maintaining concentration
• Apply CBT procedures to improve negative symptoms in schizophrenia, such as attention deficit and anhedonia

The book is an ideal companion to the authors’ popular introductory text Learning Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, building on its critically acclaimed methodology to offer guidelines for effective treatment. Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Severe Mental Illness shows how CBT enhances pharmacotherapy and helps practitioners develop important skills in treating challenging clinical problems.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Steven T. Herron, MD(University of Arizona Health Sciences Center)
Description:Written by experienced therapists for clinicians working with more severe and challenging patient populations, this book attempts to condense much of what is known, or has been learned, about the use of cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) in patients with severe psychiatric illness.
Purpose:Penned as a practical guide for therapists in mental health, this book addresses some of the most severe symptoms related to most complicated Axis I diagnoses and provides useable techniques for CBT-based treatment.
Audience:Though written in language clear enough for a relative novice, this book is targeted at clinical therapists at all experience levels, from the relatively new to the very skilled.
Features:This guide is divided into three sections, the first providing descriptions and explanations of CBT principles, the second "devoted to specific problems...frequently encountered in therapeutic work," and the third dealing with techniques to aid treatment adherence and "maintain treatment gains." Each chapter concludes with a summary, highlighting Key Points for Clinicians and Concepts and Skills for Patients to Learn, and a short list of references. The book also includes two appendixes (one of worksheets and checklists and one of CBT resources) and a well produced DVD illustrating techniques for difficult clinical situations.
Assessment:The power of this guide is its integrated use of text and video to educate clinical providers about therapeutic techniques for managing challenging clinical situations and symptoms. Though the patients in the vignettes are not real, those portraying them use actual clinical cases to illustrate the difficulties encountered in working with severely mentally disordered patients. The book is brief, concise, and extremely useful for those with any level of experience, and much like a previous title, Learning Cognitive-Behavior Therapy: An Illustrated Guide (American Psychiatric Publishing, 2006) by some of the same authors, it is a worthy attempt to create further understanding of a well researched and successful psychotherapeutic treatment. I would not hesitate to recommend it to others.

Jesse H. Wright, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor and Associate Chair for Academic Affairs at the University of Louisville School Of Medicine in Louisville, Kentucky.

Douglas Turkington, M.D., is Professor of Psychosocial Psychiatry, Department of Neurology, Neurobiology, and Psychiatry, at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Royal Victoria Infirmary, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom.

David G. Kingdon, M.D., is Professor of Mental Health Care Delivery, Department of Psychiatry, at the Royal South Hants Hospital and University of Southampton, United Kingdom.

Monica Ramirez Basco, Ph.D., is Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Psychology, at the University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas, in Dallas, Texas.