54 books match the query 'Psychiatry' and 3 start with f

cover of Finding the Right Psychiatrist: A Guide for Discerning Consumers

Finding the Right Psychiatrist

A Guide for Discerning Consumers

Robert L. Taylor, M.D.

Rutgers University Press, 2014

Choosing a psychiatrist is complicated. If a person doesn’t know what to look for and the questions to ask, finding the right psychiatrist can be daunting.The goal is to find one who, while remaining a competent physician, is as comfortable and capable working with problems of the mind as he or she is prescribing psychiatric medications.   

Combining over forty years of experience as a practicing psychiatrist with an insider’s perspective of current psychiatric practice, Dr. Robert Taylor provides invaluable guidance to persons considering psychiatric treatment or contemplating a change of doctor in an effort to find better treatment.  Cautioning readers against settling for a psychiatrist who views psychodrugs as the treatment, Dr. Taylor provides specific suggestions for avoiding the growing number of psychiatrists who write scripts automatically.

In recent decades, psychiatric care has been overly reliant on psychodrugs. Patient diagnoses are being seriously questioned.  Finding the Right Psychiatrist encourages people to seek care from a complete psychiatrist—one able and willing to pursue matters of mind and brain/body, rather than settling on psychodrugs as the main treatment.

Throughout the book, readers learn about the proper uses and limits of psychiatric diagnosis. Dr. Taylor carefully outlines an individualized approach to psychiatric care guided more by a patient’s particular problems and situation than by diagnoses that often mislead more than help. He provides a realistic appraisal of psychiatric medications: what they can and cannot do as well, a discussion of mind work tools, traits of effective psychiatrists, suggestions for how to deal with common insurance company obstacles, and an explanation of the confusing politics of psychiatry.

An indispensable resource for anyone seeking psychiatric help or tasked with advising someone of what to look for in a doctor, Finding the Right Psychiatrist gives hope and guidance to those searching for complete and personalized care.

View a three minute video of Dr. Robert L. Taylor speaking about Finding the Right Psychiatrist.
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cover of From Madness to Mental Health: Psychiatric Disorder and Its Treatment in Western Civilization

From Madness to Mental Health

Psychiatric Disorder and Its Treatment in Western Civilization

Eghigian, Greg

Rutgers University Press, 2009

From Madness to Mental Health neither glorifies nor denigrates the contributions of psychiatry, clinical psychology, and psychotherapy, but rather considers how mental disorders have historically challenged the ways in which human beings have understood and valued their bodies, minds, and souls.

Greg Eghigian has compiled a unique anthology of readings, from ancient times to the present, that includes Hippocrates; Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love, penned in the 1390s; Dorothea Dix; Aaron T. Beck; Carl Rogers; and others, culled from religious texts, clinical case studies, memoirs, academic lectures, hospital and government records, legal and medical treatises, and art collections. Incorporating historical experiences of medical practitioners and those deemed mentally ill, From Madness to Mental Health also includes an updated bibliography of first-person narratives on mental illness compiled by Gail A. Hornstein.

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cover of From Skepticism to Competence: How American Psychiatrists Learn Psychotherapy

From Skepticism to Competence

How American Psychiatrists Learn Psychotherapy

Mariana Craciun

University of Chicago Press, 2024

An examination of how novice psychiatrists come to understand the workings of the mind—and the nature of medical expertise—as they are trained in psychotherapy.
 
While many medical professionals can physically examine the body to identify and understand its troubles—a cardiologist can take a scan of the heart, an endocrinologist can measure hormone levels, an oncologist can locate a tumor—psychiatrists have a much harder time unlocking the inner workings of the brain or its metaphysical counterpart, the mind.  

In From Skepticism to Competence, sociologist Mariana Craciun delves into the radical uncertainty of psychiatric work by following medical residents in the field as they learn about psychotherapeutic methods. Most are skeptical at the start. While they are well equipped to treat brain diseases through prescription drugs, they must set their expectations aside and learn how to navigate their patients’ minds. Their instructors, experienced psychotherapists, help the budding psychiatrists navigate this new professional terrain by revealing the inner workings of talk and behavioral interventions and stressing their utility in a world dominated by pharmaceutical treatments. In the process, the residents examine their own doctoring assumptions and develop new competencies in psychotherapy. Exploring the world of contemporary psychiatric training, Craciun illuminates novice physicians’ struggles to understand the nature and meaning of mental illness and, with it, their own growing medical expertise.
 
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