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Long overdue, Positive Psychiatry provides a rigorous and clinically useful guide to the growing body of research that strongly suggests that positive psychosocial factors such as resilience, optimism, and social engagement are associated with better outcomes, including lower morbidity, greater longevity, and a heightened sense of patient well-being. Because most of the research has been conducted outside of the field of psychiatry, it has had relatively little influence on everyday clinical practice. This volume, written and edited by luminaries in the field, hopes to remedy this situation by introducing clinicians to the guiding principles of positive psychiatry, which hold that mental health cannot be defined as the mere reduction or even elimination of mental illness, and that mental health professionals must focus on more than simply controlling the symptoms of illness.
To that end, the book, while
biologically grounded and exhaustively referenced, is also structured and
written to be accessible. It includes many useful features:
• Bulleted outlines of key clinical points are included where
appropriate, fostering direct application of positive psychiatry constructs,
measures, interventions, and outcomes into clinical practice and
training.
• An abundance of interesting and compelling clinical
vignettes illustrate how to incorporate positive psychiatry techniques and
treatment strategies into practice.
• Comprehensive coverage makes this
volume the "go-to" resource for researchers and clinicians seeking an
overview and details of what positive psychiatry is, why it is needed, and
how to integrate it into research, practice, and training.
• The roster
of contributors is a "who's who" in the field of positive mental health,
rendering this the definitive source of information on positive psychiatry.
Chief among the book's strengths is its emphasis on empirically grounded applications, and the editors have ensured that limitations in the available evidence base are identified, as well as directions for further research. Positive Psychiatry fills a critical gap in the treatment literature, and researchers, clinicians, and trainees in psychiatry and allied mental health fields will welcome its publication.
The editors and authors of Positive Psychiatry: A Clinical Handbook discuss pertinent background information on positive psychology, psychological assessment tools, and interventions. The book is easy to follow, and the authors of the various chapters include "Clinical Key Points" or bulleted concise information that serve as a check-in for readers to ensure they are able to acquire main chapter points. Overall, this handbook accomplishes its goal of providing psychiatrists and other mental health professionals with a great overview of positive psychology.
— Alan M. Gross and Lauren N. Weathers
Positive Psychiatry: A Clinical Handbook a valuable and needed addition to the literature in our field. Educators will find a user-friendly resource for adding material on positive psychiatry to their curricula. Clinicians will find both guidance in expanding the range of their interventions, as well as strong theoretical and research support for the positive interventions they have already been implicitly practicing.
— Dr. Adam M. Brenner, Professor of Psychiatry, Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Vice Chair for Education in Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
The handbook is very well written, carefully edited and 'reader-friendly'. Each chapter concludes with clinical key points, and where applicable, the text includes clinical vignettes, which illustrate practical applications of theoretical concepts. In addition to a detailed general index, each chapter ends with suggested cross-references to other chapters, and includes a list of additional suggested readings (and websites). Of special interest to the Australian and New Zealand readers are references to recovery programs and government-supported recovery oriented-services developed in these countries. Research at the Centre for the Mind in Sydney is mentioned in regard to research on neurocircuitry of positive psychological traits, and the ReachOut program is provided as an example of cultivating resiliency and health behaviour involving change in the social fabric and collective efficacy... The handbook can be recommended for clinicians, researchers, as well as consumers and carers. It is a significant step towards a broader vision of psychiatry, evolving 'from just the alleviation of misery to the building of well-being' (Jeste & Palmer, 2015, p. xix).
— Karolina Krysinska, Dementia Collaborative Research Centre, University of New South Wales
This is a great supplement to the literature of mental health. It provides mental health clinicians with an incentive to rethink the principles of psychiatry, with clear guidelines for a paradigm shift. In addition, it encourages clinicians to focus on prevention of mental illness rather than only on diagnosis and treatment. The book institutes hope and enables clinicians to imagine a future in which patients flourish, and psychiatrists become better equipped to serve them.
— Laura Gonzalez-Conty, M.D.
Dilip V. Jeste, M.D., is Senior Associate Dean for Healthy Aging and Senior Care; Estelle and Edgar Levi Chair in Aging; Director, Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging; and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, California.
Barton W. Palmer, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California.
Contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Chapter
1. Introduction: What Is Positive Psychiatry?
Part I: Positive
Psychosocial Factors
Chapter 2. Positive Psychological
Traits
Chapter 3. Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth
Chapter 4.
Positive Social Psychiatry
Part II: Positive Outcomes
Chapter 5.
Recovery in Mental Illnesses
Chapter 6. What Is Well-Being?
Chapter
7. Clinical Assessments of Positive Mental Health
Part III:
Interventions in Positive Psychiatry
Chapter 8. Positive
Psychotherapeutic and Behavioral Interventions
Chapter 9. Positivity in
Supportive and Psychodynamic Therapy
Chapter 10. Complementary,
Alternative, and Integrative Medicine Interventions
Chapter 11.
Preventive Interventions
Chapter 12. Integrating Positive Psychiatry
Into Clinical Practice
Part IV: Special Topics in Positive
Psychiatry
Chapter 13. Biology of Positive Psychiatry
Chapter 14.
Positive Child Psychiatry
Chapter 15. Positive Geriatric and Cultural
Psychiatry
Chapter 16. Bioethics of Positive Psychiatry
Index