Beyond Medication focuses on the creation and evolution of the therapeutic relationship as the agent of change in the recovery from psychosis.
Organized from the clinician's point of view, this practical guidebook moves directly into the heart of the therapeutic process with a sequence of chapters that outline the progressive steps of engagement necessary to recovery. Both the editors and contributors challenge the established medical model by placing the therapeutic relationship at the centre of the treatment process, thus supplanting medication as the single most important element in recovery.
Divided into three parts, topics of focus include:
Strengthening the patient
The mechanism of therapeutic change
Sustaining the therapeutic approach.
This book will be essential reading for all mental health professionals working with psychosis including psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers.
Karon, Silver, Foreword. Part I: Engaging the Patient. Garfield, Dorman, Strengthening the Patient. Faulconer, Silver, The Initial Engagement in the Psychotherapy of Psychosis, With and Without an Asylum. Prouty, Making Contact with the Chronically Regressed Patient. Schwartz, Summers, The Role of the Therapeutic Alliance in the Treatment of Seriously Disturbed Individuals. Part II: The Elements of Change. Summers, Sustaining Relationships: Cure, Care, and Recovery. Kipp, Sustaining Relationships in Milieu Treatment: A Corollary to Summers. Koehler, The Process of Therapeutic Change: Trauma, Dissociation, and Therapeutic Symbiosis. Gibbs, Technical Challenges in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Psychotic Depression. Mackler, Practicing the "Impossible Profession" in Impossible Places. Part III: Listening to the Patient: Stories of What Really Works. Penney, Leaving Schizophrenia: The Returning Home of the Awakened Mind. Greenberg, Life in the Mines: A Retrospective on My Therapy. Foltz, The Experience of Being Medicated in Schizophrenia: A Subjective Inquiry and Implications for Psychotherapy. Part IV: Concluding Chapter. Steinman, Sustaining the Therapeutic Approach: Therapists May Need Help Too!
