Psychological assessment is practiced in wide-ranging settings to address the varied clinical and administrative needs of veteran populations. Such assessment blends record review, clinical interviews of the veteran and collateral sources of information, behavioral observations, and psychological testing.
This book promotes the care and well-being of veterans by bringing together knowledgeable and experienced psychologists to discuss a range of psychological assessment methods and procedures. It aims to help patients and their families, healthcare providers, and concerned citizens gain an improved understanding of veterans' cognitive functioning, emotional states, personality traits, behavioral patterns, and daily functioning.
The book begins with a history of the psychological assessment of veterans and investigates its efficacy in different settings, including outpatient mental health, long-term care, primary care, home-based primary care, and telemental health. Later chapters address assessment of a variety of disorders or presenting problems, including substance use disorders, psychotic disorders, mood disorders and suicidal thoughts and behavior, PTSD and other anxiety disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, dementia, pain and pain-related disorders, and polytrauma. The book concludes with important special considerations, including assessment of symptom and performance validity, assessment of homeless veterans and health-related quality of life, and ethical, legal, and professional issues.
Psychological Assessment of Veterans provides an essential reference and guide for clinical psychologists, including those working in the subspecialties, and psychology trainees who work with veterans.

Anxiety is ubiquitous in everyday life and avoiding sources of anxiety is often at the core of our everyday choices and can even shape our life plans. But why are we all so anxious, when is this normal uniqueness as opposed to a diagnosable anxiety disorder, and why have anxiety disorders become more prevalent than ever? In All We Have to Fear, Horwitz and Wakefield argue that psychiatry has largely generated this epidemic by inflating our socially inconvenient, yet natural, fears into psychiatric disorders and ignoring our biologically designed natures, thus allowing the overdiagnosis of anxiety disorders and facilitating a culture of medicalization. The result is a society that is afraid of natural, biologically designed feelings of fear and, overall, anxious about feeling anxious. All We Have to Fear is a groundbreaking and fresh look at how to distinguish between anxiety conditions that are mental disorders, those that are natural reactions to threats, and those that are natural products of evolution. Building on the new science of evolutionary psychology, Horwitz and Wakefield demonstrate a mismatch between our basic biological natures and the environment that we have created for ourselves. Some of our natural anxiety is born from situations and objects that posed serious risks during prehistory, but that are no longer usually dangerous, for example, a city dweller who is terrified of snakes. This mismatch generates normal anxiety when there is, in fact, no real danger. Evolutionary psychology shows that beyond the context in which the symptoms occur, our biological heritage as a species must be considered in any psychiatric diagnosis as we are otherwise bewildered by our own primitive fears and beset by diffuse anxieties that seem to have no function in our lives. All We Have to Fear argues that only by paying attention to our evolutionary shaping can we understand ourselves, our fears, what is normal versus disordered in what we fear, and make informed choices about how to approach these fears. The mismatch between our natures, environment, and our fears is not pathological, but rather reveals the forces that shaped us and provides an "emotional time machine," shedding light on who we were when we were shaped as a species, and thus, allowing us more insight into who we are today.

After her diagnosis of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), health journalist Patricia Prijatel did what any reporter would do: start investigating the disease, how it occurs, and how it's treated. While she learned that important research was emerging, she found a noticeable lack of resources on the disease, which affects 70,000 women a year and differs from hormone-positive breast cancer in important ways, including prognosis and treatment options. Hormone negative breast cancer disproportionately affects younger women and African-American women - and it can be more dangerous than other types of breast cancer. But there are many reasons to be hopeful, as Prijatel learned. Through her blog, Positives About Negative, she has met hundreds of women who have told her their stories and shared their fears, confusion, and frustration. After her recovery, she began writing this book to provide the first dedicated resource for women diagnosed with TNBC. Surviving Triple Negative Breast Cancer delivers research-based information on the biology of TNBC; the role of genetics, family history, and race; how to navigate treatment options; and a plethora of strategies to reduce the risk of recurrence, including diet and lifestyle changes. In clear, approachable language, Prijatel provides an accessible guide to understanding a pathology report and a vast array of scientific studies. Woven throughout the book are stories of women who have faced TNBC. These are mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters who went through a variety of medical treatments and then got on with life - one competes in triathlons, two had babies after being treated with chemo, one got remarried in her 50s, and one just celebrated the 30th birthday of the son she was nursing when she was diagnosed. With honesty and humor, Prijatel's inspiring story shows the heart of a survivor. Her message is that TNBC is a disease to take seriously, with proper and occasionally aggressive treatment, but it is not automatically a killer. Most women diagnosed with the disease do survive. Surviving Triple Negative Breast Cancer is a roadmap for women who want to be empowered through their treatment and recovery.

Of the approximately 38,500 deaths by suicide in the U.S. annually, about two percent - between 750 and 800 - are murder-suicides. The horror of the murder-suicide looms large in the public consciousness-they are reported in the media with more frequently and far more sensationalism than most suicides, and yet very little research has been conducted on this grave form of violence. In The Perversion of Virtue, suicide researcher Thomas Joiner explores the nature of murder-suicide and offers a unique new theory to explain this nearly unexplainable act: that 'true' murder-suicides always involve the wrongheaded invocation of one of four interpersonal virtues: mercy, justice, duty, and glory. The parent who murders his child and then himself seeks to 'save' his child from a fatherless life of hardship; the wife who murders her husband and then herself seeks to right the wrongs he committed against her, and so on. Rather than distorting these four virtues beyond recognition, murder-suicide involves the gross misperception of when and how these virtues should be applied. Drawing on case studies from the media as well as from scholarly literature, Joiner meticulously examines, deconstructs, and finally rebuilds our understanding of murder-suicide in such a way as to bring tragic reason to what may seem an unfathomable act of violence. Along the way he also dispels some of the most enduring myths of suicide - for instance, that suicide is usually an impulsive act (it is almost always premeditated), or that alcohol or drugs are involved in most suicides (usually they are not). Sure to be controversial, this book seeks to make sense of one of the most difficult-to-comprehend types of violence in modern society, shedding new light that will ultimately lead to better understanding and even prevention.

Over the years, psychologists have devoted uncountable hours to learning how human beings make judgments and decisions. As much progress as scholars have made in explaining what judges do over the past few decades, there remains a certain lack of depth to our understanding. Even where scholars can make consensual and successful predictions of a judge's behavior, they will often disagree sharply about exactly what happens in the judge's mind to generate the predicted result. This volume of essays examines the psychological processes that underlie judicial decision making. The first section of the book takes as its starting point the fact that judges make many of the same judgments and decisions that ordinary people make and considers how our knowledge about judgment and decision-making in general applies to the case of legal judges. In the second section, chapters focus on the specific tasks that judges perform within a unique social setting and examine the expertise and particular modes of reasoning that judges develop to deal with their tasks in this unique setting. Finally, the third section raises questions about whether and how we can evaluate judicial performance, with implications for the possibility of improving judging through the selection and training of judges and structuring of judicial institutions. Together the essays apply a wide range of psychological insights to help us better understand how judges make decisions and to open new avenues of inquiry into the influences on judicial behavior.

Frontotemporal Dementia provides an in-depth look at the history, various types, genetics, neuropathology and psychosocial aspects of one of the most common but least understood causes of dementia, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, from one of the world's leading centers for the study of dementia. Aided by the latest research in diagnosis, mechanism and treatment, this book captures the rich and quickly changing landscape of a devastating neurodegenerative disease, and offers up-to-date clinical advice for patient care. Frontotemporal dementia, in particular, raises psychological and philosophical questions about the nature of self, free will, emotion, art and behavior - important topics for practitioners and families to appreciate as they care for the sufferer. This book includes case studies, photographs and figures from the leaders in the field and personal communication from the researchers driving these developments.

Originally published in 1995, the first edition of Managing Your Mind established a unique place in the self-help book market. A blend of tried-and-true psychological counseling and no-nonsense management advice grounded in the principles of CBTand other psychological treatments, the book straddled two types of self-help literature, arguing that in one's personal and professional life, the way to success is the same. By adopting the practical strategies that mental health experts Butler and Hope have developed over years of clinical research and practice, one can develop the "mental fitness" necessary to resolve one's personal and interpersonal challenges at home and work and to live a productive, satisfying life.
The first edition addressed how to develop key skills to mental fitness (e.g., managing one's time better, facing and solving problems better, keeping things in perspective, learning to relax, etc.), how to improve one's relationships, how to beat anxiety and depression, and how to establish a good mind-body balance. For this new edition, Butler and Hope have updated all preexisting material and have added five new chapters-on sexuality and intimate relationships; anger in relationships; recent traumatic events and their aftermath; loss and bereavement; and dealing with the past.

Self-criticism is a personality trait that has been implicated in a wide range of psychopathologies and developmental arrests. Defined as the tendency to set unrealistically high standards for one's self and to adopt a punitive stance towards the self once these standards are not met, self-criticism is both active and cyclical. Self-critics actively create the social-interpersonal conditions that generate their distress, and their distress itself exacerbates self-criticism. Erosion offers a comprehensive treatment of self-criticism based in philosophy, developmental science, personality and clinical psychology, social theories, and cognitive-affective neuroscience. Professor Golan Shahar expertly summarizes the most recent research on the topic and synthesizes theory, empirical research, and clinical practice guidelines for assessment, prevention, and treatment. The book rests upon three elements that, as Shahar argues, are central to the maintenance of self-critical vulnerability: the importance of a concept of an authentic self or the need to "feel real"; the importance of intentionality and goal-directedness; and the power of interpersonal relationships and cultural context. Shahar argues that exploring these elements requires an integrated clinical approach that incorporates multidimensional assessment and interventions which reconcile science, practice, and policy. The result is a broad and scholarly volume that is useful to practitioners, researchers, and theorists interested in self-criticism.

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) -- the interactions among the mind, nervous system, and immune system -- is a new discipline that has emerged only in the last fifty years. Even more recent but no less important have been the many advances in and applications of psychology to PNI, the contributions of which are essential to the vitality of the rapidly growing field.
The Oxford Handbook of Psychoneuroimmunology comprises perspectives on the state-of-the-art applications of psychological theory to PNI. Chapters in the volume represent the entire range of levels of analysis in psychoneuroimmunology. Genes within cells, cells within organs, organs within individuals, and individuals within both close social groups and large social structures are considered. Furthermore, chapters address the effects of psychological factors on markers of chronic, low-grade, systemic inflammation, which can indicate risk for many disorders including atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, frailty, and some cancers. The volume provides specific applications of psychoneuroimmunological models to fatigue, cancer, neuroinflammation, and pain -- and a superb review of the ways psychotherapeutic approaches integrated with psychoneuroimmunological knowledge can mitigate against adverse health outcomes.
This volume samples from the best and most sophisticated applications of psychology to PNI, whether those applications arise from affective science, development, behavioral neuroscience, or clinical psychology.

The study of moderation and mediation of youth treatment outcomes has been recognized as enormously beneficial in recent years. However, these benefits have never been fully documented or understood by researchers, clinicians, and students in training. After nearly 50 years of youth treatment outcome research, identifying moderators and mediators is the natural next step-shifting focus to mechanisms responsible for improved outcomes, identifying youth who will benefit from certain treatments or who are in need of alternative treatments, and recognizing the challenges associated with the study of moderators and mediators and their routine use in clinical practice. Moderators and Mediators of Youth Treatment Outcomes examines conceptual and methodological challenges related to the study of moderation and mediation and illustrates potential treatment moderators and mediators for specific disorders. The volume also considers empirical evidence for treatment moderators and mediators of specific disorders and illustrates how theoretical and empirical knowledge regarding moderators and mediators can be harnessed and disseminated to clinical practice. This book will be invaluable to researchers conducting treatment outcome studies (both efficacy and effectiveness), clinicians interested in evidence-based work and in understanding for whom and why certain treatments work, and students of clinical child and adolescent psychology and psychiatry.

From smartphones to social media, from streaming videos to fitness bands, our devices bring us information and entertainment all day long, forming an intimate part of our lives. Their ubiquity represents a major shift in human experience, and although we often hold our devices dear, we do not always fully appreciate how their nearly constant presence can influence our lives for better and for worse. In this second edition of How Fantasy Becomes Reality, social psychologist Karen E. Dill-Shackleford explains what the latest science tells us about how our devices influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In engaging, conversational prose, she discusses both the benefits and the risks that come with our current level of media saturation. The wide-ranging conversation explores Avatar, Mad Men, Grand Theft Auto, and Comic Con to address critical issues such as media violence, portrayals of social groups, political coverage, and fandom. Her conclusions will empower readers to make our favorite sources of entertainment and information work for us and not against us.

Using the authors' over thirteen years of experience at the psychosis-risk clinic at Yale University School of Medicine, The Psychosis-Risk Syndrome presents a concise handbook that details the diagnostic tools and building blocks that comprise the Structural Interview for Psychosis-Risk Syndromes, or SIPS. Clear and to the point, this volume provides an in-depth description of this new clinical high-risk population, along with instructions on how to use the SIPS to evaluate persons for psychosis-risk.
The handbook's main section takes the reader step-by-step through the SIPS evaluation, tracking how patients and families find their way to the clinic, the initial interview, the evaluation process, and the summary session consisting of findings and future options. The core diagnostic symptoms of the SIPS and psychosis-risk states are illustrated with dozens of symptom and case examples drawn from real but disguised patients from the Yale clinic. With an emphasis on clinical usefulness, the handbook finishes with "practice cases" for the reader to test his or her new skills at evaluating clinical populations for psychosis-risk.

This is a practical guide to the management of mild head injury, or concussion. It is now generally accepted that post-concussion syndrome has an organic basis and this has resulted in the emergence of clinics, staffed by interdisciplinary teams, dedicated to addressing the problem. After a short account of the history of thinking on mild head injury and its epidemiology, a section on pathology provides the background to the clinical picture. The coverage then moves on to look at the acute stage and management in the emergency department, followed by a description of the clinical features of the persisting symptoms. There are clear descriptions of the measurements, investigations and examinations to be completed. The authors then move on to look at the neurological, cognitive-behavioural and psychiatric aspects of management and treatment. Specific cases are discussed, including the special considerations when dealing with children, the elderly, executives and sportspeople. At the end of the book there are copies of information sheets and booklets for patients. Philip Wrightson and Dorothy Gronwall are pioneers in this field. They were the first to define test procedures to measure the changes following concussion, and to establish a clinic for those with persisting problems.

Keeping doctors happy and productive requires a thorough understanding of the systemic causes and consequences of physician stress, as well as the role of resilience in maintaining a healthy mental state. The pressure of making life-or-death decisions along with those associated with the day-to-day challenges of doctoring can lead to poor patient care and communication, patient dissatisfaction, absenteeism, reductions in productivity, job dissatisfaction, and lowered retention. This edited volume will provide a comprehensive tool for understanding and promoting physician stress resilience. Specifically, the book has six interrelated objectives that, collectively, would advance the evidence-based understanding of (1) the extent to which physicians experience and suffer from work-related stress; (2) the various manifestations, syndromes, and reaction patterns directly caused by work-related stress; (3) the degree to which physicians are resilient in that they are successful or not successful in coping with these stressors; (4) the theories and direct evidence that account for the resilience; (5) the programs during and following medical school which help to promote resilience; and (6) the agenda for future theory, research, and intervention efforts for the next generation of physicians.

A TIME magazine Must-Read Book of the Year Ever wonder what your therapist is thinking? Now you can find out, as therapist and New York Times bestselling author Lori Gottlieb takes us behind the scenes of her practice - where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she). When a personal crisis causes her world to come crashing down, Lori Gottlieb - an experienced therapist with a thriving practice in Los Angeles - is suddenly adrift. Enter Wendell, himself a veteran therapist with an unconventional style, whose sessions with Gottlieb will prove transformative for her. As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her own patients' lives - a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen who feels she has nothing to live for, and a self-destructive twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys - she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very questions she is bringing to Wendell. Taking place over one year, and beginning with the devastating event that lands her in Wendell's office, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone offers a rare and candid insight into a profession that is conventionally bound with rules and secrecy. Told with charm and compassion, vulnerability and humour, it's also the story of an incredible relationship between two therapists, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious inner lives, as well as our power to transform them.

The common, existing distance between children and adults is the basis of this work, which has been addressed in many literary and cultural works throughout history. Not being able to remember how we, now adults, thought as children -like their spontaneity or magic and omnipotent form of thinking- would leave children completely isolated, like a helpless immigrant in a foreign land. This book attempts to comprehend, how parents' misunderstanding, can induce loneliness and helplessness in children, that with time will become traumatic, and will remain unconsciously present in all of us forever. It will continue to repeat using infantile emotions, children form of thinking, and experiencing as well, loneliness, anxiety, depression, fears and the chronic need of finding a 'rescuer', in the form of power, fame, drugs, money, religion, and so on. This very innovative approach to the understanding of children's segregation and its repercussion on adult's emotional life, will be of invaluable interest to all practicing psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and parents included.

"A warm, profound and cleareyed memoir. . . this wise and sympathetic book's lingering effect is as a reminder that a deeper and more companionable way of life lurks behind our self-serious stories."-Oliver Burkeman, New York Times Book Review A remarkable exploration of the therapeutic relationship, Dr. Mark Epstein reflects on one year's worth of therapy sessions with his patients to observe how his training in Western psychotherapy and his equally long investigation into Buddhism, in tandem, led to greater awareness-for his patients, and for himself For years, Dr. Mark Epstein kept his beliefs as a Buddhist separate from his work as a psychiatrist. Content to use his training in mindfulness as a private resource, he trusted that the Buddhist influence could, and should, remain invisible. But as he became more forthcoming with his patients about his personal spiritual leanings, he was surprised to learn how many were eager to learn more. The divisions between the psychological, emotional, and the spiritual, he soon realized, were not as distinct as one might think. In The Zen of Therapy, Dr. Epstein reflects on a year's worth of selected sessions with his patients and observes how, in the incidental details of a given hour, his Buddhist background influences the way he works. Meditation and psychotherapy each encourage a willingness to face life's difficulties with courage that can be hard to otherwise muster, and in this cross-section of life in his office, he emphasizes how therapy, an element of Western medicine, can in fact be considered a two-person meditation. Mindfulness, too, much like a good therapist, can "hold" our awareness for us-and allow us to come to our senses and find inner peace. Throughout this deeply personal inquiry, one which weaves together the wisdom of two worlds, Dr. Epstein illuminates the therapy relationship as spiritual friendship, and reveals how a therapist can help patients cultivate the sense that there is something magical, something wonderful, and something to trust running through our lives, no matter how fraught they have been or might become. For when we realize how readily we have misinterpreted our selves, when we stop clinging to our falsely conceived constructs, when we touch the ground of being, we come home.