Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

English-medium universities around the world face real challenges in ensuring that incoming students have the language and literacy skills they need to cope with the demands of their degree programmes. One response has been a variety of institutional initiatives to assess students after admission, in order to identify those with significant needs and advise them on how to enhance their academic language ability. This volume brings together papers from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Oman, South Africa and the United States, written by language assessment specialists who discuss issues in the design and implementation of these post-admission assessments in their own institutions. A major theme running through the book is the need to evaluate the validity of such assessments not just on their technical quality but on their impact, in terms of giving students access to effective means of developing their language skills and ultimately enhancing their academic achievement.

Catherine Booth's achievements - as a revivalist, social reformer, champion of women's rights, and, with her husband William Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army - were widely recognized in her lifetime. However, Catherine Booth's life and work has since been largely neglected. This neglect has extended to her theological ideas, even though they were critical to the formation of Salvationism, the spirituality of the movement she cofounded. This book examines the implicit theology that undergirds Catherine Booth's Salvationist spirituality and reveals the ethical concerns at the heart of her soteriology and the integral relationship between the social and evangelical aspects of Christian mission in her thought. Catherine Booth emerges as a significant figure from the Victorian era, a British theologian and church leader with a rare if not unique intellectual and theological perspective: that of a woman.

South African universities face major challenges in meeting the needs of their students in the area of academic language and literacy. The dominant medium of instruction in the universities is English and, to a much lesser extent, Afrikaans, but only a minority of the national population are native speakers of these languages. Nine other languages can be media of instruction in schools, which makes the transition to tertiary education difficult enough in itself for students from these schools. The focus of this book is on procedures for assessing the academic language and literacy levels and needs of students, not in order to exclude students from higher education but rather to identify those who would benefit from further development of their ability in order to undertake their degree studies successfully. The volume also aims to bring the innovative solutions designed by South African educators to a wider international audience.

The experience of madness which might also be referred to more formally as schizophrenia or psychosis consists of a complex, confusing and often distressing collection of experiences, such as hearing voices or developing unusual, seemingly unfounded beliefs. Madness, in its various forms and guises, seems to be a ubiquitous feature of being human, yet our ability to make sense of madness, and our knowledge of how to help those who are so troubled, is limited.

Making Sense of Madness explores the subjective experiences of madness. Using clients' stories and verbatim descriptions, it argues that the experience of 'madness' is an integral part of what it is to be human, and that greater focus on subjective experiences can contribute to professional understandings and ways of helping those who might be troubled by these experiences.

Areas of discussion include:

• how people who experience psychosis make sense of it themselves
• scientific/professional understandings of madness'
• what the public thinks about schizophrenia

Making Sense of Madness will be essential reading for all mental health professionals as well as being of great interest to people who experience psychosis and their families and friends.

To date, the study of communicated explanations has been, at best, unsystematic. There has been little recognition that many, if not most, explanations are eventually delivered to a hearer or hearers. These potential audiences constrain the way the explanation is ultimately shaped. Similarly, researchers have devoted themselves to the study of "accounts," for the most part without an accompanying interest in the fundamental processes of event comprehension. This volume is devoted to bridging the gap between these two traditions.

Are hallucinations and delusions really symptoms of an illness called 'schizophrenia'? Are mental health problems really caused by chemical imbalances and genetic predispositions? Are psychiatric drugs as effective and safe as the drug companies claim? Is madness preventable? This second edition of Models of Madness challenges those who hold to simplistic, pessimistic and often damaging theories and treatments of madness. In particular it challenges beliefs that madness can be explained without reference to social causes and challenges the excessive preoccupation with chemical imbalances and genetic predispositions as causes of human misery, including the conditions that are given the name 'schizophrenia'. This edition updates the now extensive body of research showing that hallucinations, delusions etc. are best understood as reactions to adverse life events and that psychological and social approaches to helping are more effective and far safer than psychiatric drugs and electroshock treatment. A new final chapter discusses why such a damaging ideology has come to dominate mental health and, most importantly, how to change that. Models of Madness is divided into three sections: Section One provides a history of madness, including examples of violence against the 'mentally ill', before critiquing the theories and treatments of contemporary biological psychiatry and documenting the corrupting influence of drug companies. Section Two summarises the research showing that hallucinations, delusions etc. are primarily caused by adverse life events (eg. parental loss, bullying, abuse and neglect in childhood, poverty, etc) and can be understood using psychological models ranging from cognitive to psychodynamic. Section Three presents the evidence for a range of effective psychological and social approaches to treatment, from cognitive and family therapy to primary prevention. This book brings together thirty-seven contributors from ten countries and a wide range of scientific disciplines. It provides an evidence-based, optimistic antidote to the pessimism of biological psychiatry. Models of Madness will be essential reading for all involved in mental health, including service users, family members, service managers, policy makers, nurses, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychoanalysts, social workers, occupational therapists, art therapists.

Extensive scientific research has been conducted into understanding and learning more about psychotic experiences. However, in existing research the voice of subjective experience is rarely taken into consideration. In this book, first-person accounts are brought centre-stage and examined alongside current research to suggest how personal experience can contribute to professional understanding, and therefore the treatment, of psychosis.

Experiencing Psychosis brings together a range of contributors who have either experienced psychosis on a personal level or conducted research into the topic. Chapters are presented in pairs providing information from both personal and research perspectives on specific aspects of psychosis including: hearing voices, delusional beliefs, and trauma as well as cultural, existential and spiritual issues. Experts from the field recognise that first and foremost psychosis is a human experience and that those who suffer from psychotic episodes must have some involvement in any genuine attempts to make sense of the experience.

This book will be essential reading for all mental health professionals involved with psychosis. The accessible style and compelling personal histories will also attract service users and their families.

Extensive scientific research has been conducted into understanding and learning more about psychotic experiences. However, in existing research the voice of subjective experience is rarely taken into consideration. In this book, first-person accounts are brought centre-stage and examined alongside current research to suggest how personal experience can contribute to professional understanding, and therefore the treatment, of psychosis.

Experiencing Psychosis brings together a range of contributors who have either experienced psychosis on a personal level or conducted research into the topic. Chapters are presented in pairs providing information from both personal and research perspectives on specific aspects of psychosis including: hearing voices, delusional beliefs, and trauma as well as cultural, existential and spiritual issues. Experts from the field recognise that first and foremost psychosis is a human experience and that those who suffer from psychotic episodes must have some involvement in any genuine attempts to make sense of the experience.

This book will be essential reading for all mental health professionals involved with psychosis. The accessible style and compelling personal histories will also attract service users and their families.

Although neural network models have had a dramatic impact on the cognitive and brain sciences, social psychology has remained largely unaffected by this intellectual explosion. The first to apply neural network models to social phenomena, this book includes chapters by nearly all of the individuals currently working in this area. Bringing these various approaches together in one place, it allows readers to appreciate the breadth of these approaches, as well as the theoretical commonality of many of these models.
The contributors address a number of central issues in social psychology and show how these kinds of models provide insight into many classic issues. Many chapters hint that this approach provides the seeds of a theoretical integration that the field has lacked. Each chapter discusses an explicit connectionist model of a central problem in social psychology. Since many of the contributors either use a standard architecture or provide a computer program, interested readers, with a little work, should be able to implement their own variations of models.
Chapters are devoted to the following topics and models:
* the learning and application of social categories and stereotypes;
* causal reasoning, social explanation, and person perception;
* personality and social behavior;
* classic dissonance phenomena; and
* belief change and the coherence of large scale belief systems.

To date, the study of communicated explanations has been, at best, unsystematic. There has been little recognition that many, if not most, explanations are eventually delivered to a hearer or hearers. These potential audiences constrain the way the explanation is ultimately shaped. Similarly, researchers have devoted themselves to the study of "accounts," for the most part without an accompanying interest in the fundamental processes of event comprehension. This volume is devoted to bridging the gap between these two traditions.

What causes mental health problems? Nature or nurture? Brain and biology? Genetic inheritance or social environment? Revised and updated, this concise book explains what we know today about the origins of mental distress, drawing on the latest research from across the world. The answer is of course a bit of everything in combination - because the human body and brain are shaped by the environments we inhabit and what happens to us. Human distress is caused by loss, trauma, violence, childhood abuse, social injustices, poverty and deprivation. How well we are able to cope with these stressors likewise depends on a multiplicity of factors and is unique to each individual. An essential addition to the Straight Talking Introduction series, the book supports the call for more understanding of the social determinants of mental wellbeing. It adds to the arguments for treatments that do not rely on the busted hypothesis of neurochemical imbalances.