Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Psychiatric Problems: A Practical Guide

Cognitive behaviour therapy is now established as the leading psychological treatment for many psychiatric conditions. This innovative book gives a guide to practising the therapy with patients suffering from a wide range of emotional disorders. Unlike other handbooks which extensively review research findings, this concentrates on showing the reader how to perform the therapy in practice. Acknowledged experts in the practice, teaching, and empirical investigation of cognitive behaviour therapy contribute to the book. It provides a summary of the cognitive behavioural principles on which the therapy is based, followed by a detailed account of how to carry out a cognitive-behavioural assessment. Subsequent chapters provide self-contained descriptions of how to use the therapy to treat particular conditions: panic and generalized anxiety, phobic disorders, depression, obsessional disorders, somatic problems, eating disorders, chronic psychiatric handicaps, marital problems, and sexual dysfunctions. A final chapter provides a description of problem-solving training. Each chapter describes the condition, assessment procedures, factors likely to be important in formulating the problem, and then the treatment, step-by-step. Particular attention is paid to overcoming difficulties encountered during treatment, and extensive use is made of clinical material and case illustrations. This is an excellent guide to the practice of cognitive behaviour therapy for all those beginning to use the technique.

Table of Contents:
The development and principles of cognitive behavioural treatments; Cognitive behavioural assessment; Anxiety states; Phobic states; Obsessional disorders; Depression; Somatic problems; Eating disorders; Chronic psychiatric handicaps; Marital problems; Sexual dysfunctions; Problem solving; References; Index. Contributors: Gillian Butler, David M. Clark, Peter Cooper, Christopher Fairburn, Melanie Fennell, Alan E. Fruzzetti, John Hall, Keith Hawton, Neil Jacobsen, Joan Kirk, Paul M. Salkovskis, Karen B. Schmaling.

Review :
`... an excellent "hands-on" guide to the practice of cognitive-behavioural interventions. Of the various edited texts in existence, this is the most concrete and practical and likely will find good use in the libraries of beginning clinicians or therapists intending to expand their clinical interventions to include cognitive-behavioral therapies' Contemporary Psychology `Psychiatrists, junior and senior, will find this a useful practical guide to an expanding area of psychiatric treatment.' The Lancet `The editors have done an excellent editorial job and all the chapters follow a straightforward format, introducing the disorder, discussing formulation, assessment, and treatment, and finishing with a summary of the relevant research evaluating the treatment... it should be useful for any therapists, whether they be psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, or psychiatric nurses, who want to get an idea of what actually goes on in cognitive behavioural treatments. It should also be recommended reading in training programmes in cognitive behaviour therapy.' British Medical Journal `This well-written and concise work should become a standard text for all training courses in clinical psychology and psychiatry.' Behavioural Psychotherapy ` Hawton and his editorial colleagues have no reason to fear that their product will fail to be noticed, or to make an impact. Its sheer quality will ensure both. An ambitious undertaking, it is clearly the product of clear thinking and planning, careful writing of chapters by authors who are established experts in their respective fields, and judicious editorial handling. As a practical guide to the popular and growing field of cognitive-behaviour therapy, this compares very favourably with its predecessors, and is likely to be taken as a text of choice for some time.' Behaviour Research Therapy 'Excellent... This book is a must for all those working in psychiatric and allied settings.' British Journal of Psychology `This is an important and timely book ... the standard of writing is very good and I think the book succeeds admirably in its stated aims. It can be recommended fully to individuals and to libraries.' British Journal of Clinical Psychology `A very good addition to the burgeoning literature... will be a standard text on cognitive-behavioural therapy in Britain for some time to come.' British Journal of Medical Psychology 'this book is excellent. It has some very nice touches, particularly the subsidiary references after each chapter...this book is not an in-depth academic treatise but a practical guide for the application of cognitive behaviour therapy techniques for a wide variety of psychiatric problems. In this respect it works extremely well, with down to earth practical advice. This book is a must for all those working in psychiatric and allied settings.' The Irish Journal of Psychology 'a remarkable summary of the current clinical practice of cognitive behavior therapy.' American Journal of Psychiatry