In our society, medication is often seen as the treatment for severe mental illness, with psychotherapy a secondary treatment. However, quality social interaction may be as important for the recovery of those with severe mental illness as are treatments. This volume makes this point while describing the emotionally moving lives of eight individuals with severe mental illness as they exist in the U.S. mental health system. Offering social and psychological insight into their experiences, these stories demonstrate how patients can create meaningful lives in the face of great difficulties. Based on in-depth interviews with clients with severe mental illness, this volume explores which structures of interaction encourage growth for people with severe mental illness, and which trigger psychological damage. It considers the clients’ relationships with friends, family, peers, spouses, lovers, co-workers, mental health professionals, institutions, the community, and the society as a whole. It focuses specifically on how structures of social interaction can promote or harm psychological growth, and how interaction dynamics affect the psychological well-being of individuals with severe mental illness.

Advancing work to effectively study, understand, and serve the fastest growing U.S. ethnic minority population, this volume explicitly emphasizes the racial and ethnic diversity within this heterogeneous cultural group. The focus is on the complex historical roots of contemporary Latino/as, their diversity in skin-color and physiognomy, racial identity, ethnic identity, gender differences, immigration patterns, and acculturation. The work highlights how the complexities inherent in the diverse Latino/a experience, as specified throughout the topics covered in this volume, become critical elements of culturally responsive and racially conscious mental health treatment approaches. By addressing the complexities, within-group differences, and racially heterogeneity characteristic of U.S. Latino/as, this volume makes a significant contribution to the literature related to mental health treatments and interventions.

North America’s Indigenous population is a vulnerable group, with specific psychological and healing needs that are not widely met in the mental health care system. Indigenous peoples face certain historical, cultural-linguistic and socioeconomic barriers to mental health care access that government, health care organizations and social agencies must work to overcome. This volume examines ways Indigenous healing practices can complement Western psychological service to meet the needs of Indigenous peoples through traditional cultural concepts. Bringing together leading experts in the fields of Aboriginal mental health and psychology, it provides data and models of Indigenous cultural practices in psychology that are successful with Indigenous peoples. It considers Indigenous epistemologies in applied psychology and research methodology, and informs government policy on mental health service for these populations.

This book introduces Unitary Developmental Theory (UDT) to the field of psychology. The first of two volumes, it introduces the UDT model and examines its application to psychological development and mental-health recovery. The book presents a comprehensive model of UDT using 15 phases, showing how this model can be applied to fields including psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology and humanist psychology. It outlines how UDT was developed and can be used as an overarching model from which different schools of psychology can extrapolate process, thereby offering improved structure for all types of interventions including mental-health recovery. This book is designed to precede Volume 2 which details the model’s equal applicability to organization development. Offering an innovative way of modeling developmental learning, this book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars and postgraduate students in the fields of developmental psychology, applied psychology and mental-health recovery.

In The Tavistock Learning Group: Exploration Outside the Traditional Frame, the authors attempt to expand the heuristic, theoretical, and applied dimensions of Group Relations paradigms by pairing classical Group Relations concepts with typically non-Tavistock psychology paradigms and social sciences concepts. Under the broad domain of psychologically-informed constructs, Lacanian psychoanalysis, existential philosophy and bioenergetics are applied. Under a somewhat broader range of social science conceptualization, the capacity for abstraction is linked with anti-work in groups, the large group is re-imagined as an extension of community dynamics and dysfunction, and the role of symbol systems, symbology and semiotics are examined in relation to sophisticated work groups. Lastly, non-Tavistock models of group development and conceptualization are re-interpreted and explained using a group-as-a-whole framework.

This book, based upon a series of psychological research studies, examines Sierra Leone as a case study of a constructivist and narrative perspective on psychological responses to warfare, telling the stories of a range of survivors of the civil war. The authors explore previous research on psychological responses to warfare while providing background information on the Sierra Leone civil war and its context. Chapters consider particular groups of survivors, including former child soldiers, as well as amputee footballers, mental health service users and providers, and refugees. Implications of the themes emerging from this research are considered with respect to how new understandings can inform current models of trauma and work with its survivors. Amongst the issues concerned will be post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth; resilience; mental health service provision; perpetration of atrocities; and forgiveness. The book also provides a critical consideration of the appropriateness of the use of Western concepts and methods in an African context. Drawing upon psychological theory and rich narrative research, Trauma, Survival and Resilience in War Zones will appeal to researchers and academics in the field of clinical psychology, as well as those studying post-war conflict zones.

Therapists have a unique opportunity and responsibility to provide a respectful environment for their clients, yet respect has not received adequate attention in the psychotherapy community and related research. Respect-Focused Therapy: Honoring Clients Through the Therapeutic Relationship and Process sets forth the formulation of respect-focused therapy (RFT), a new approach to psychotherapy that addresses the quality of the client–therapist relationship and therapeutic process. This volume treats respect as a combination of action, attitude and open-mindedness, urging therapists to recognize their own biases and beliefs and be willing to suspend them for the benefit of their clients. Using Martin Buber’s "I-Thou" relationship as a conceptual model, Slay-Westbrook provides core principles of respect and demonstrates how to incorporate these into the therapeutic relationship to best foster a healing environment.