Overview

Family Therapy as an Alternative to Medication critically and passionately explores the concepts and practices that constitute the interface between family systems based psychotherapy and modern biological psychiatry. This diverse collection of essays, eight by psychiatrists, is neither for nor against medication, but takes a skeptical view of the unquestioned dominance that medication-based treatments have achieved among mental health practitioners. Its viewpoint is that therapeutic attention to context and relationships, regularly diminished when medications are prescribed, interferes with the development of psychiatric disorders, adds to maturity, and expands consciousness. Clinical examples, by both practitioners and patients, are used to define potential problems that arise from trying to combine a medical model with family systems work and also illustrate the decision-making processes and methods for applying family systems based therapies. This book will stimulate thoughtful conversation among students and practitioners of all mental health disciplines.

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9780415860932

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Reviews

Highly experienced practitioners of family therapy...Should be of interest to anyone in the health field. -- Psychiatric Services Reading this book was a refreshing and stimulating experience. The editors did a remarkable job in bringing together 24 different voices (contributors) to elaborate on and provide multiple and different vistas of the core book's theme. I think that any person who reads this book will broaden his or her level of awareness of contemporary issues defining the diagnosis and treatment modalities offered in the mental health field and in medicine in general. This book is extraordinarily relevant to the current crisis in the mental health field and medicine in general. I highly recommend this book for all mental health therapists and physicians, particularly those working in psychiatry and primary-care settings. It is my sincere hope that others enjoy the poetic experience of reading this book in the same way I did. . -- Jose Bayona, MD, MPH, University of Texas--Houston Medical School

Author Information

Phoebe Prosky, MSW, studied under family therapy pioneer Nathan Ackerman, MD, and worked and taught at the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy for fifteen years. Moving to Maine, she founded a family therapy training center and clinic which incorporates the spirit of Ackerman's work, embodied in an approach which emphasizes the conscious use of intuition and alternatives to the use of medication in the teaching and practice of family therapy. David V. Keith, M.D. holds joint appointments as Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics at the State University of New York, Health Science Center at Syracuse. He is also the Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Director of Family Therapy. Dr. Keith's special interest is in the impact of relationships on health and illness. It is this interest which guides his teaching, academics, and clinical work in family therapy.

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