This book critically examines the psychology of gambling in Hong Kong and Macao. Covering the history of gambling and its development in the two jurisdictions, it highlights the prevalence and status quo of problem gambling, the theoretical perspectives on the etiology of gambling disorder, and the treatment of problem gambling. The book also introduces a personality and pathways development model of Chinese problem gamblers and concludes with outlooks on the future of gambling in Hong Kong and Macao.

Why do so many people suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous angst? Some twenty percent of us are afflicted with common Anxiety and Depressive disorders. That's not just nervous or scared or sad - that is painful dysfunction without obvious benefit. This angst comes from an evolutionary inheritance that biologically shaped us into social communities. There are just five specific diagnostic subtypes that account for most of this modern-day angst: Panic Anxiety, Social Anxiety, OCD, Atypical Depression and Melancholic Depression. Each of the five comes from primeval social instincts that told our ancestors how to improve survival of their community DNA. These instincts are also very much alive and unfettered in other species today. Their potential link to our human distress was anticipated by both Darwin and Freud. We humans have greater instinctive consciousness than other creatures. Rational thoughts let us defy biological social instructions. One result of this uniquely human skill is that over-ridden social instincts complain to us in the painful language of emotional disorders. A few of us even tackle this pain head-on, in ways that can advance our intellectual creativity, social performance, and productivity. Our human intellectual abilities owe as much to our unique social software as to our greater brain processing power. Civilization is built upon our ability to maintain social harmony with ethics and government, and to find solace in technology, religion and beer. This novel theoretical synthesis offers a new framework for understanding what our knowledge of psychiatric neuroscience, clinical research, diagnosis and treatment. The central theory is explained in everyday language. It is supported by clinical observation, straightforward accounts of complex science, animal research, and quotes from both ancient writings and modern humor and lyrics. This fascinating new synthesis is written for the general public, mental health professionals and academic researchers alike.

Modeled on the author's bestselling "Therapist s Guide to Clinical Intervention, "this new book on child clinical interventionpresents much of the material in outline or bullet point format, allowing easy understanding of complex material for the busy therapist. This clinician s guide to diagnosing and treating disorders in children includes definitions of the disorder, diagnostic criteria, the neurobiology of the disorder, information on functional impairment, treatment planning, and evidence-based interventions. The book additionally offers adjunctive skill building resources to supplement traditional therapy choices as well as forms for use in clinical practice.
Outlines treatment goals and objectives for diagnosis Discusses interventions and the evidence basis for each Offers skill building resources to supplement treatment Provides business and clinical forms for use with child patients "

The Guest Editors have assembled expert authors to cover the full clinical span of the topic autism and autism spectrum disorders. An historical perspective of the evolution of the disorder opens the issue. Next, comprehensive coverage is given to an article on the definitions, diagnostic criteria, and clinical features of autism spectrum disorders. Other articles in the issue cover the relevant topics like epidemiology, genetic syndromes and genetic testing, early diagnosis and diagnostic evaluation, and neuroimaging and neurochemistry of autism. Authors also present information on tsocial skills for the autistic child, behavioral interventions, and transitioning the autistic child into adulthood, to name a few. This issue should be very well received by pediatricians.

This book focuses on the role of the psychiatric, medical and nutritional assessment and management of severely ill patients with anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Lead clinicians and researchers address the essentials of risk assessment, the identification of complications and the monitoring of treatment progress. Location of care and the role of the team are fully addressed, with due consideration of legal and ethical issues. Practical guidelines are included on risk assessment, management of acute and chronic physical problems, feeding during treatment and consent, as outlined in the MARSIPAN (2010) and Junior MARSIPAN (2012)documents. Assessment and Management of Medical Problems in Eating Disorders will be of value for GPs, psychiatrists, medical teams and all health-care professionals involved in the treatment and management of anorexia and bulimia nervosa and related eating disorders. "

This rigorous survey offers a comprehensive rethinking of the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders for a bold challenge to practitioners. It critiques what we understand about offenders and the mechanisms of offending behaviors, and examines how this knowledge can best be used to reduce offending and relapses. To this end, experts weigh the efficacy of common assessment methods and interventions, the value of prevention programs, and the validity of the DSM's classifications of paraphilias. This strengths/weaknesses approach gives professional readers a guide to the current state as well as the future of research, practice, and policy affecting this complex and controversial field. Included in the coverage: Strengths of actuarial risk assessment. Risk formulation: the new frontier in risk assessment and management. Dynamic risk factors and offender rehabilitation: a comparison of the Good Lives Model and the Risk-Need-Responsivity Model. The best intentions: flaws in sexually violent predator laws. Desistance from crime: toward an integrated conceptualization for intervention. From a victim/offender duality to a public health perspective. A call to clear thought and accurate action, Treatment of Sex Offenders will generate discussion and interest among forensic psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and social workers.

This unique text is both an accessible introduction and specialist review of contemporary dramatherapy practice today. The collected chapters introduce critical and cohesive perspectives on dramatherapy as it is being practiced, developed and advanced in diverse contexts, and also investigate the connections between the discipline of dramatherapy both as an allied health profession, a form of psychotherapy and a traditional form of theatre and healing. In so doing, the volume unpicks the relationship between drama and therapy, exploring some of its key philosophies and practices, and examining its efficacy. Edited by two experienced lecturers and dramatherapists, the book stands as a timely and crucial resource for students and practitioners alike in this growing field. It is essential reading for students on dramatherapy, arts therapy and applied theatre degree programmes, and useful background reading for students of theatre and performance, counselling and psychotherapy.

Globally, postnatal depression (PND) is a growing public health problem. PND affects 10 to 15% of women in Western society. It caused by a combination of biological, psychological and social factors. Two models have attempted to define and explain PND; the biomedical and the sociological models. The traditional biomedical model views PND as a medical condition which implies there is individual pathology and abnormality. Whilst the biomedical model has been the dominant model in treating PND, it has been criticized by feminist sociologists and psychologists for its rigidity in defining and explaining PND. In contrast, the psychosocial model of health acknowledges the biological factors that impact on emotional well-being, but places more emphasis on the personal and social factors that impact on emotional well-being, but places more emphasis on the personal and social factors that contribute to depressive symptoms such as gender, poverty, social disadvantage and social class. The central argument throughout this book is the importance of support before and after the birth for women's emotional well-being. This book will also include women's journeys through pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, postnatal depression, and resolution. To date, literature has focused on women's lived experiences of PND rather than their personal journeys through pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood. Additionally, the adjustment to fatherhood has received less attention. For example, little is known about the impact of postnatal depression on the partner, what support partners offer when women with the intention to fill the gap in knowledge of cultural and social issues relating to pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood for woman who were diagnosed with, and had resolved, PND.

"This much-needed volume brings to the clinician or student some of the best critical-minded analysis by some of the most insightful thinkers about psychiatric diagnosis today. The thought-provoking questions these essays raise, and the multifaceted and provocative answers they provide, cultivate sensitivity to the nuances of diagnostic assessment that often makes the difference between clinical success and failure." - Jerome C. Wakefield, PhD, DSW, New York University Silver School of Social Work, New York This transformative resource challenges social workers and mental health professionals to rethink their approaches to assessment and diagnosis from the ground up. Among the book's unique features are its use of diverse lenses to examine a common case and its illustration of how multiple perspectives can be integrated for a richly textured portrait of the individual in context. Equally crucial is the book's commitment to professional development, from exercises to improve case conceptualization to strategies for teaching and learning. Topics include: The DSM-5 definition of mental disorder: critique and alternatives. Making assessment decisions: macro, mezzo, and micro perspectives. Neuroscience, resilience, and the embodiment of "mental" disorder. Narrative, psychodynamic, and cultural conceptualizations of disorder. Person-centered and contextualized diagnosis in mental health. Meeting the challenge of teaching integrated assessment. Critical Thinking in Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis has much to offer professionals, researchers, and educators in the fields of social work and mental health. .

Beauty is often an invisible yet potent presence in clinical work. The Psychology of Beauty: Creation of a Beautiful Self, by Ellen Sinkman, LCSW, addresses the vital importance of beauty, its sources, and manifestations in everyone s lives including psychotherapy patients. The ability to be mesmerizingly beautiful and beautifully creative, strivings toward mastering beauty, and wishes to be transformed are universal desires. During psychotherapy, patients manifest or defend against these forces. So it is striking that patients as well as therapists often overlook or dismiss issues about creating beauty in themselves. The book introduces this seeming contradiction with the ancient myth of Pygmalion and his sculpture of a beautiful woman. These enduring mythic figures represent the wish to emerge as a beautiful being and the wish for the power to create beauty in another. Patients in psychotherapy often pursue these elusive goals outside clinical work, rather than within treatment. Manifold venues enticingly promise reinvention. These activities may involve plastic surgery, beauty salon make-overs, diet gurus, elocution coaches, tattooing, and athletic training. Seekers of beauty engage with people whom they see as agents offering them ravishing physical or charismatic attractiveness. Psychotherapists may or may not be among agents seen as having the power to transform. The quest for beauty is widespread and in many instances non-pathological. Sinkman looks at multiple avenues of understanding and appreciation of efforts toward beauty, including artistic creativity and political activities. However there is a spectrum of investment in creating beauty. Pursuing beauty can become pathological. Therapists need to watch out for its appearance outside the psychoanalytic arena. Such material can be missed when the analyst falls into counter-transference difficulties such as feeling invested in transforming the patient, identifying with the patient s narcissistic injuries and/or needs to compete, or enacting battles with the patient. Such difficulties interfere with attunement to patients experiences. The Psychology of Beauty considers definitions of beauty, gender identity themes, and origins of beauty in the mother-infant relationship. It investigates ugliness, sadomasochistic beauty pursuits, evolutionary factors, and aspects of aging. The book highlights emerging clinical material which has yet to gain notice and suggests what analysts may be missing, and why."

The concepts of psychological literacy and the psychologically literate citizen promise to invigorate a new global approach to psychology education. They pose a basic question: What attributes and capabilities should undergraduate psychology majors acquire? Many psychological organizations have defined psychological literacy by guidelines and lists of student learning outcomes, but although psychology educators across the globe have been working towards helping students to acquire these attributes over the past 50 years, educators have only recently explicitly delineated attributes and learning outcomes, and sought to develop appropriate learning, teaching, and assessment strategies, including whole program approaches.
The contributors to this volume argue that psychological literacy is the most important outcome of an undergraduate psychology education and that psychologically literate citizens use their knowledge of psychology to problem-solve in ethical and socially responsible ways that directly benefit their communities. In this book, a rich variety of international perspectives contribute to the development of the two key concepts of psychological literacy and the psychologically literate citizen. Authors provide practical guidance for classroom psychology educators, as well as curriculum developers and reviewers. Ultimately, they make the case for a paradigm shift in psychology education.

The Oxford Handbook of Behavioral Emergencies and Crises includes the most up-to-date and valuable research on the evaluation and management of the most challenging patients or clients faced by mental health providers-individuals who are at high risk of suicide, of other-directed violence, or of becoming the victims of interpersonal violence. These are cases in which the outcome can be serious injury or death, and there can be negative consequences not only for the patient, but also for the patient's family and friends, for the assessing or treating clinician, and for the patient's clinic or medical center. Virtually all mental health clinicians with an active caseload will see individuals with such issues. This Handbook is comprised of chapters by leading clinicians, researchers, and scholars in this area of practice. It presents a framework for learning the skills needed for assessing and working competently with such high-risk individuals. Chapters draw a distinction between behavioral emergencies and crises, and between emergency intervention and crisis intervention. The book examines the inter-related aspects of the major behavioral emergencies; that is, for example, the degree to which interpersonal victimization may lead an individual on a pathway to later suicidal or violent behavior, or the degree to which suicidal individuals and violent individuals may share certain cognitive characteristics. This resource is not simply a knowledge base for behavioral emergencies; it also presents a method for reducing stress and acquiring skills in working with high-risk people.

Caring for people with disabilities often becomes an all-encompassing responsibility for one or more family members. To manage the multifaceted demands, caregivers must possess strong multitasking skills, including the ability to assist with daily life tasks; provide emotional support; help with financial affairs; mediate and advocate with health care providers. Maintaining balance within their own lives can become incredibly challenging for caregivers. More often than not, providing care for family members or loved ones occurs at the expense of the caregivers' well-being. And for caregivers who themselves have disabilities, it further complicates matters.

"Multiple Dimensions of Caregiving and Disability" addresses concerns that have been long familiar to the caregiver population and examines the current state of family care for individuals with disabilities. With a lifespan perspective, this concise reference reviews the literature on specific problems of caregivers and explores which care strategies are effective, promising, or lacking in available resources and support interventions. Contributors also explore the more fluid and subjective aspects of caregiving, such as feelings, spirituality, and family roles. Suggestions for future policy improvements, particularly within the public health sector, are discussed as well.

Topics covered include:

Family dynamics and caregiving for people with disabilities.
Parent caregiving of children with disabilities.
Race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and caregiving.
Educational, training, and support programs for caregivers.
Emerging technologies to aid caregivers.
Developing partnerships between caregivers and health care providers.

"Multiple Dimensions of Caregiving and Disability" is a must-have resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners, policy makers, and graduate students across such disciplines as clinical psychology, nursing, social work, public health, medicine, and social and education policy."

Play therapy training clinics are an important aspect of the clinical mental health field. An approved play therapy training center should offer direct play therapy services to children and families and provide quality education, training, research, and supervision. While each setting may have a set of contractual standards for supervision, few offer advice for setting up such approved centers and training clinics. Developing and Sustaining Play Therapy Clinics is a collection of innovative research on policies and procedures for university-based play therapy clinical settings to help guide practitioners in multiple areas including emergency and crisis situations, paperwork requirements, and mandated reporting requirements. While highlighting topics including adventure therapy, clinic branding, and playroom design, this book is ideally designed for clinic directors, psychologists, psychiatrists, play therapy practitioners, academics, administrative supervisors, and researchers.

Challenging much current thinking in the field that considers these youths a homogenous group, this volume applies a heterogeneous approach. Individualized treatment plans addressing a wide range of needs are presented. Practical and specific guidance about assessment, treatment, and discharge planning is well-grounded in research, providing a solid theoretical and conceptual framework. Staff training, development and treatment outcome evaluation are also included.

In the "Preparing for Treatment "section, the book discusses how to translate the needs of sexually aggressive youth into a program model. In its "Providing Treatment "section there are descriptions of therapeutic, milieu, and specialized interventions. Finally, in a "Supporting Treatment" section, guidance is given to improve outcome evaluation efforts, staff selection, and training.

In this searing exploration of deadly codependency, the author takes the reader on a spellbinding voyage of discovery that examines the questions: Are some people naturally too caring? Is caring sometimes a mask for darker motives? Can science help us understand how our concerns for others can hurt everything we hold dear? This gripping story brings extraordinary insight to our deepest questions. Is kindness always the right answer? Is kindness always what it seems?

Shocked by the fact that, in the Netherlands, psychiatric patients are considered potentially appropriate candidates for physician-assisted suicide, Olevitch examines the research and data and finds that, even in the United States, the situation is threatening. She describes how the rhetoric of the assisted-suicide movement can confuse potential suicide victims and their helpers, and how surrogate medical decisions are a growing threat in the lives of incompetent patients. Olevitch argues the assisted-suicide movement is based not on the level-headed realism its advocates claim, but on a lack of information about up-to-date ways of bringing about psychological wellness, on a misguided panic about finances, a phobic view of medical procedures, a lack of understanding of the support needed by average medical patients, and a misguided belief in superficial safeguards.

Olevitch describes how Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and Cognitive Behavior Therapy can be used to help terminally ill or disabled people overcome their profound depression. Another cognitive focus is added as she presents material answering questions including what patients are really thinking when they request assisted suicide or when they decline medical procedures. Well-known psychologist Albert Ellis says of the volume, Carefully read this unusual book and see how it can be useful to you, whether you are a physician, a mental health professional, or an unfortunate patient

While most abnormal psychology texts seem to aim solely for breadth, the acclaimed Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology aims for depth, with a focus on adult disorders and special attention given to the personality disorders. Now in its third fully updated edition, it has established itself as an unparalleled guide for professionals and graduate students alike. Esteemed editors Paul H. Blaney, Robert F. Krueger, and the late Theodore Millon selected the most eminent researchers in abnormal psychology to cover all the major mental disorders, allowing them to discuss notable issues in the various pathologies which are their expertise. This third edition of the Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology is fully updated according to the DSM-5 and also reflects alternative, emerging perspectives in the field (e.g., the NIMH's Research Domain Criteria Initiative; RDoC). The Textbook exposes readers to exceptional scholarship, a history of psychopathology, the logic of the best approaches to current disorders, and an expert outlook on what researchers and mental health professionals will be facing in the years to come. With extensive coverage of personality disorders and issues related to classification and differential diagnosis, exceptionally useful for all mental health workers, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, and as a textbook focused on understanding psychopathology in depth, as well as a valuable guide for graduate psychology students and psychiatric residents.

The role that placebos play in many treatments is clear: they not only play a complimentary role in various treatment options but they can sometimes be the only beneficial option for treatment. Brain imaging studies over the past decade have shown that placebo-treated patients undergo some of the same changes in brain activity as those treated with pharmacologically active substances. Yet this important component of healing is not yet harnessed in clinical settings. The Placebo Effect in Clinical Practice brings together what we know about the mechanisms behind the placebo response, as well as the procedures that promote these responses, in order to provide a focused and concise overview on how current knowledge can be applied in treatment settings. An introductory chapter documents the ubiquity and extent of the placebo response and discusses the history of the placebo response in relation to medical treatment. Several subsequent chapters focus on how placebos work and how the placebo effect can be enhanced. Expectation, conditioning and elements of the treatment situation are covered in separate chapters. The relationship between psychotherapy and placebo treatment is covered as is the ethics of deliberate use of the placebo effect. Because placebo effects are particularly prominent in some psychiatric conditions, particular attention is given to the role of the placebo response in psychiatric treatment. The final chapter summarizes what we currently know and offers concrete suggestions for how what we know of the placebo effect can be used to enhance the benefit of all treatments.

Bipolar disorders affect up to 3% of the world's population and are the 6th leading cause of disability worldwide. The estimated annual costs of bipolar disorder approach $50 billion in the United States, and the associated societal and personal suffering is immeasurable. Bipolar disorder is a lifelong illness that typically begins in mid-adolescence, thereby disrupting healthy developmental processes. It is also a progressive illness, making early intervention even more critical. As the disorder presents differently in youth as it does in adults, considerable controversy exists around the diagnosis in young people. The neurobiological factors leading to the onset of bipolar disorder reflect abnormalities in adolescent brain development. Bipolar disorder is strongly heritable and therefore, these developmental abnormalities likely represent the culmination of processes that precede the expression of symptoms. Current studies of children who are at risk for bipolar disorder are identifying these processes. Again, controversy exists about how to move these neuroscience gains forward to help affected individuals and, particularly to manage children at risk to delay or prevent the onset or progression of bipolar disorder. With these considerations in mind, Bipolar Disorder in Youth provides a timely, focused review of the diagnosis, treatment, and neurobiology of bipolar disorder in youth. It addresses current controversies and resolves those in which evidence is available. The book is organized into three sections based on these topics to provide comprehensive discussions to aid clinicians managing these individuals in their practices, as well as scientists trying to advance the field. The three editors are widely recognized experts in bipolar disorder, and the authors of each chapter represent international experts in the respective topics. Consequently, this book is the most comprehensive volume available discussing this important population and is a 'must' for the libraries of clinicians and scientists working with bipolar children and adolescents.

This volume collects case studies on the lives of people living in post-apartheid Johannesburg, South Africa. In doing so, it considers how people manage, respond to, narrate and/or silence their experiences of past and present violence, multiple insecurities and precarity in contexts where these experiences take on an everyday continuous character. Taking seriously how context shapes the meaning of violence, the forms of response, and the consequences thereof, the contributing chapter authors use participatory and ethnographic techniques to understand people's everyday responses to the violence and insecurity they face in contemporary Johannesburg. Each case study documents an example of a strategy of coping and healing and reflects on how this strategy shapes the theory and practice of violence prevention and response. The case studies cover a diversity of groups of people in Johannesburg including migrants, refugees, homeless people, sex workers and former soldiers from across the African continent. Read together, the case studies give us new insights into what it means for these residents to seek support, to cope and to heal challenging the boundaries of what psychologists traditionally consider support mechanisms or interventions for those in distress. They develop a notion of healing that sees it as a process and an outcome that is rooted in the world-view of those who live in the city. Alongside the people's sense of insecurity is an equally strong sense of optimism, care and a striving for change. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that this book deals very centrally with themes of the struggle for progress, mobility (geographic, material and spiritual), and a sense of possibility and change associated with Johannesburg. Ultimately, the volume argues that coping and healing is both a collective and individual achievement as well as an economic, psychological and material phenomenon. Overall this volume challenges the notion that people can and should seek support primarily from professional, medicalized psychological services and rather demonstrates how the particular support needed is shaped by an understanding of the cause of precarity.

An in-depth look at prevalent anxiety disorders in adolescents, this book is designed for parents of teens who have recently been diagnosed with or who are at risk for developing such a disorder. It is also for other adults, such as teachers and guidance counsellors, who are regularly in contact with at-risk adolescents. The book combines scientific expertise - including information about available treatments and up-to-date research findings on anxiety disorders-with the practical wisdom of parents who have raised teenagers with these illnesses. In clear and accessible language, Dr Edna B. Foa and Linda Wasmer Andrews explain in detail each of the four major anxiety disorders (social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder). The book includes tips on how to go about getting a diagnosis, what a diagnosis means, when and where to get treatment, and how to navigate the health care system. There is also advice on how to handle everyday life - both at home and at school - once the teen is diagnosed. Pointers on red flags to look out for and about the dangers of doing nothing are included as well to help parents and other adults deal effectively with adolescent anxiety disorders before they become debilitating.