Interventions for Serious Mental Disorders: Working With Individuals and Their Families

Serious mental disorders typically require a multipronged treatment approach that is both pharmacological and psychosocial. This book is oriented toward social workers, who are frontline purveyors of the many psychosocial services needed by most individuals with a serious mental disorder. The book also demonstrates ways of working with patients’ families to provide support, ease caregiver burden, and help facilitate recovery. The author, Christina E. Newhill, Ph.D., has both academic and research credentials. She is a professor in the School of Social Work and professor in the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. Currently she is coinvestigator on a project on brain imaging, cognitive enhancement, and early schizophrenia funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

This is a huge book, a compendium of every conceivable issue related to treatment of serious mental disorders. At the societal level, the overview ranges from the historical background of how societies have conceptualized and cared for persons with serious mental disorders to contemporary educational and advocacy resources for families, such as those provided by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. At the treatment level, effective case management, treating clients from diverse cultural backgrounds as well as a range of age and gender groups, ways of engaging families, and working with involuntary clients are examples of relevant issues. The text discusses discrete approaches to treatment of schizophrenia, paranoid and major mood disorders, specific personality disorders, substance abuse, and other comorbid or co-occurring conditions. There are good discussions of research-based treatment or psychiatric rehabilitation models, such as cognitive remediation and social skills training. Engaging resistant clients, working in multidisciplinary teams, and facilitating rehospitalization when needed are other areas of interest. Important sections range from the current status of public mental health systems to relevant legal and ethical issues, especially with respect to civil commitment and the “dangerous person standard.”

Case management, essential for this population, is discussed in considerable detail, from the basic elements of community support systems to finding permanent supportive housing. On the individual treatment level, guidelines for developing and maintaining a therapeutic alliance are later wonderfully enhanced by a research-triggered discussion of clinicians’ negative feelings and attitudes and other affective challenges to working effectively with persons with serious mental disorders.

As part educational overview and part treatment manual, many sections of this book are enhanced by actual case histories and examples of effective interventions. In summary, although specifically aimed toward improving core competences of clinical social workers, this encyclopedic work would be a valuable resource for any mental health professional working with persons with serious mental disorders.