Schizophrenia and Psychosis

The purpose of this book is to make group CBT for psychosis more accessible to clinicians everywhere. CBT for psychosis is now recognized as an evidence-based intervention that should be offered to whoever demands it. The limited number of trained psychologists in CBT for psychosis and the limited number of psychologists in general working with people with psychosis have led us to develop the first published group workbook for CBT for psychosis that can be administered by mental health staff, not solely psychologists. The workbook described and included has been evaluated in rigorous studies and has obtained very strong empirical support, with participants also recognizing significant clinical improvements. The ‘group CBT for psychosis—A guidebook for clinicians’ aims at not only explaining how to conduct group CBT for psychosis but also covers the theoretical background behind the intervention, summarizes the various studies conducting in CBT for psychosis, explains essential therapeutic elements needed to conduct group CBT for psychosis, and covers different group interventions inspired by our group CBT for psychosis approach. This book will be useful for students, clinicians, and researchers interested in group CBT for psychosis.Less

Persecutory delusions, the unfounded beliefs that others intend harm to the individual, are a major psychiatric problem. They are a common feature of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder and bipolar disorder, often lead to admission to psychiatric hospital, and are a cause of considerable distress to patients and carers. However, increasingly it is recognised that persecutory delusions reflect the severe end of a spectrum of paranoia, which also encompasses beliefs and worries about threats from others that are common in the general population. In the last ten years an increasing number of researchers and clinicians have focussed on explaining paranoid experience in both clinical and non-clinical populations, with fascinating results. In this title, the three major authorities in the field bring together the current knowledge about the assessment, understanding, and treatment of persecutory delusions. Leading experts in cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, psychiatry, social psychiatry, neuroimaging, and neuroscience explain their perspectives on paranoia. Pharmacological, cognitive, and family interventions are comprehensively reviewed, and personal accounts of paranoia are included.Less

The central theme of this title presents a challenging and controversial view of psychosis-that the features of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia actually lie on a continuum with, and form part of, normal behavior and experience. The dispositional or “schizotypal” traits associated with psychotic disorders, while increasing one’s chances for mental illness, also lead to positive outcomes such as enhanced creativity or spiritual experience. Each aspect of this theme is supported by extensive experimental and clinical evidence, questioning the conventional medical wisdom that treats psychotic illness in the narrow context of neurological disease. The result is an authoritative and provocative overview of an important topic in psychological research and clinical practice.Less

Social cognition, or the mental processes underlying social interaction, is one of the strongest predictors of functional outcome in serious mental illness. Over the last 15 years, there has been a surge of interest in the causes and consequences of social cognitive dysfunction, and also in the development of interventions to improve social cognition. Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT) is one of the most widely studied and empirically supported social cognitive interventions. Since 2003, it has been translated into seven languages and implemented in 10 countries. SCIT is a psychosocial intervention that can be easily integrated into standard clinic programming. It consists of weekly, hour-long group sessions and can be led by clinicians at all levels of training. SCIT combines principles of cognitive psychotherapy and cognitive remediation training with interactive techniques to help clients increase awareness of their own thinking biases. This clinician guide provides step-by-step instructions to implement SCIT groups within inpatient or outpatient treatment settings, and includes access to an array of videos, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and homework sheets to enhance learning and treatment engagement among clients.Less

This title provides a firm grounding in the theory and research of normal social cognition, builds on this base to describe how social cognition appears to be dysfunctional in schizophrenia, and explains how this dysfunction might be ameliorated. Composed of contributed chapters written by the top experts in the field, the volume is divided into three parts to address each of these areas. Part I, Foundations of Human Social Cognition, explores normal social cognition in childhood development, adulthood, and across cultures, as well the brain-bases of social cognition and clinical social cognition research. Part II, Social Cognition in Schizophrenia: Descriptive and Experimental Research, discusses social cognition and functional outcome, emotion processing, Theory of Mind, paranoid ideation, social cognition in early psychosis, and the social cognitive neuroscience of schizophrenia. Part III, Social Cognition in Schizophrenia: Treatment Approaches, focuses on findings from current treatment outcome research as well as several leading social cognitive intervention approaches—Integrated Neurocognitive Therapy (INT), Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (CET), Metacognitive Training (MCT), and Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT).Less