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The book covers a topic that is often overlooked in the literature: How people with serious mental illnesses (i.e., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression) come to recognize and deal with the symptoms of a mental illness in order to promote recovery. Per the recovery movement in mental health, recovery is understood as not simply symptom elimination, but the process of living a meaningful and satisfying life in the face of mental illness. Acceptance of Mental Illness draws from research to provide educators, clinicians, researchers, and consumers with an understanding of the multidimensional process of acceptance of mental illness in order to support people across culturally diverse groups to experience empowerment, mental wellness, and growth. Chapters focus on providing a historical overview of the treatment of people with mental illness, examining the acceptance process, and exploring the experience of acceptance among women, men, racial–ethnic minorities, and LGBT individuals with serious mental illnesses. The book is a useful tool for mental health educators and providers, with each chapter containing case studies, clinical strategies lists, discussion questions, experiential activities, diagrams, and worksheets that can be completed with clients, students, and peers.Less

This book is for youth workers, social workers, mental health staff, specialist teachers, family support workers, and so on, whose clients present with comorbidity, risk, and difficulty accessing mainstream services. It describes inevitably stressful, unsettling work, providing effective help in complex helping systems. An innovative response emerges, building on adaptive (evidence-based) mentalization-based theory and practice. Uniquely, AMBIT applies mentalizing not only directly, in work with clients, but also in work: (a) with the team, (b) with wider (often “dis-integrated”) networks, and (c) creating cultures of learning and radical transparency. AMBIT is as much an improvement system for teams as a “therapy”—strengthening team identity and coherence, and supporting a wider community of practice. Linking evidence-based practice to practice-based evidence, the book concludes with impact descriptions from some of the nearly 200 AMBIT-trained teams, a client’s perspective, and a challenging analysis of systems of care pointing toward the need to create more mentalizing systems.Less

Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Clinical Handbook is an edited volume that summarizes the current state of the research concerning adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This is important, as the research indicates that young adults have low rates of attendance in post-secondary education, of being competitively employed, and of living independently. Traditionally, the field of autism has focused on early screening, diagnosis, and intervention. The poor outcomes indicate that individuals with ASD experience lifelong struggles, and few other books have focused on adolescents and young adults with ASD. Experts from a multitude of disciplines serving this population have written chapters that summarize the research in their area of expertise and offer practical suggestions for clinicians, teachers, and parents. Each chapter provides a bullet-point abstract, a list of additional resources, and study questions. These features are designed to make it useful for college-level instructors. In addition, each chapter provides suggestions for future research, which are designed to move the field forward.Less

The demand for results-driven accountability is pervasive in all aspects of education today. The shift in emphasis from compliance to accountability for closing achievement gaps and improving student outcomes creates challenges and opportunities for school-based professionals. School-based professionals have a significant role to play in supporting school improvement efforts and improving outcomes for students in their role as program evaluators. Despite the need for advanced knowledge and skills in program evaluation, resources dedicated to developing the competencies of school-based professionals in evaluation approaches, methods, and tools are scarce. This book addresses this need by serving as a practical resource for school-based professionals seeking to use program evaluation to enhance data-based decision making and accountability as informed by implementation research and within the context of a multi-tier system of supports framework. Throughout this book, school-based professionals are positioned as change agents guiding their school or school districts in the adoption, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based interventions and systems of support to meet students’ academic and behavioral needs.Less

This edited volume is the first book to provide an overview of animal maltreatment as a legal, clinical, and forensic mental health issue. It offers guidance for mental health professionals and lawyers in cases involving the adjudication of animal maltreatment offenses, with a special focus on forensic mental health assessments in such cases. Animal maltreatment includes physical or sexual abuse, neglect, or hoarding of animals. Almost one-half of all U.S. states have statutory provisions mandating or allowing courts to order forensic mental health assessments of individuals convicted of animal maltreatment offenses. However, there are few resources on this topic for mental health and legal professionals, and none that offer guidance for evaluations in animal maltreatment cases. This book introduces what the authors believe will become the newest subfield of forensic mental health assessment, Forensic Animal Maltreatment Evaluations (FAME). It begins with an examination of the legal and social contexts for the problem, followed by a review of clinical knowledge within the area. Subsequent chapters offer perspectives for social and clinical responses in animal maltreatment cases. Finally, several chapters describe prospects for an area of forensic mental health assessment focused specifically on the forensic evaluation in cases of animal maltreatment.Less

In this title, the authors review psychosocial treatments for anxiety disorders, focusing on the scientific basis and demonstrated outcomes of the treatments. Cognitive-behavioral therapies are highlighted, as they have been the most frequently investigated approaches to treating anxiety disorders. Individual chapters feature specific phobias: social phobia, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. The book is rich in clinical material and integrates science and clinical practice in an effort to help practitioners to improve the effectiveness of their work with anxious clients. Recently developed psychosocial treatments for anxiety disorders reflect the systematic influence of scientifically generated knowledge, and these new treatments yield strong results. Research in such areas as information processing, cognition, behavioral avoidance, and the physiological components of anxious arousal has increased our knowledge of mediators that cause and maintain anxiety disorders.Less

In recent years, there has been a movement away from traditional disorder-specific manuals for the treatment of psychological disorders and toward treatment approaches that focus on addressing psychological processes that appear to cut across disorders. These “transdiagnostic” evidence-based treatments may prove to be more cost-efficient and have the potential to increase availability of evidence-based treatments to meet a significant public-health need. Among clinicians, the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP), developed by Dr. David Barlow and colleagues, is the most recognizable and widely used transdiagnostic treatment protocol with empirical support for its use. This book provides clinicians with a “how to” guide for using the UP to treat a broad range of commonly encountered psychological disorders in adults. Each chapter covers a specific emotional disorder but important transdiagnostic processes are highlighted and discussed in relation to treatment. Case studies are employed throughout to illustrate the real-world application of this unique cognitive behavioral protocol and to instruct clinicians in the nuts and bolts of assessment, case formulation, and treatment in accordance with a transdiagnostic perspective. Most of the chapters are authored by current or former unified protocol team members who are all thoroughly familiar with the UP and will be writing about cases they themselves have treated.Less

Assessing Negative Response Bias in Competency to Stand Trial Evaluations provides a comprehensive guide to assessing malingering, feigning, poor effort, and lack of cooperation in competency to stand trial (CST) examinations. It draws on both the author’s extensive experience as a CST examiner and the vast, dynamic professional literature from forensic psychology, clinical psychology, and neuropsychology on assessing response style. The assessment process is considered from beginning to report writing and testimony, with tips regarding interview strategies, fact patterns and behaviors suggestive of feigning, testing, and creative and ethical use of collateral data. Every major validity test used by CST examiners is thoroughly and critically reviewed, as are others that are promising and not yet widely adopted. This includes self-report inventories such as the MMPI-2, MMPI-2-RF, PAI, and SIMS; structured interviews like the SIRS, SIRS-2, and M-FAST; performance validity tests like the TOMM, VIP, 15 item Test, and WMT; and CST-specific tests like the ILK and ECST-R Atypical Presentation Scales. A complete chapter is devoted to means to summarize and combine data from different tests and sources, and another to special populations such as defendants who claim amnesia, are intellectually disabled, or are adolescents. Report writing and testimony considerations are discussed in detail, with implications for the assessment and practice. In Chapter 10, CST examiners’ practices, including preferences for tests and collateral sources, are reported along with the perceived prevalence of various invalid presentation styles. Finally, policy implications of feigning and suggestions for cost-effective practice are provided.Less

Children and adolescents in the general population and in clinical populations reveal surprisingly high rates of playing with fire or actual firesetting behavior. A single fire has the potential to cause a cascade of serious consequences to the child, family, and the community, some of which may continue forever. Yet, there is limited practical information and advice based on available empirical evidence to help programs or practitioners work effectively with children or adolescents who misuse fire, and their families. This book provides practical guidelines designed to facilitate the clinical assessment and treatment of youthful firesetting behavior based on nearly four decades of research and intervention experience with this population. The topics covered in this book address several important content areas. Initial chapters provide an overview of the significance of the problem, and some lessons learned based on case control, clinical trial, and real-world implementation projects. Recommendations for using screening and assessment measures that evaluate firesetting and general psychosocial issues are included. Several intervention methods are outlined for use with children, caregivers, and families. These methods encompass fire safety education materials and several cognitive-behavioral treatment skills-training procedures that focus on understanding of the fire, affect regulation and self-control, parenting practices, and home-based management programs. The book also includes suggestions to promote professional and program development which reflect on various educational, ethical, legal, collaborative, and community safety considerations. The book’s content is intended to help a diverse array of practitioners understand and target the context in which the misuse of fire occurs.Less

Autism continues to fascinate researchers because it is both debilitating in its effects and complex in its nature and origins. The prevalent theory is that autism is primarily characterised by difficulties in understanding mental concepts, but the contributors to this resource present new and compelling arguments for an alternative theory. Their research points strongly to the idea that autism is primarily a disorder of executive functions, those involved in the control of action and thought. As such, this online title provides a new and controversial perspective on this important question.Less