Books

Psychosocial Approaches to Negative Symptoms in Psychosis provides cutting edge information about psychotherapeutic intervention and assessment of negative symptoms. Negative symptoms are known to be the most debilitating aspect of psychotic disorders and are difficult to treat. Psychopharmacological interventions have been shown to have little impact on symptoms and at times may even exacerbate them. As a result, the development and use of psychological intervention has long been seen as a potential method for treating these difficult symptoms. However, to date, there has been no comprehensive book that focuses on negative symptoms from a psychosocial perspective.

The book fills this gap through introducing the reader to key empirically-supported and emerging psycho-social and behavioral treatments, including social skills training, exercise interventions, cognitive behavioral therapy, amongst others. Included in the book are also lived experience and critical perspectives, as well as various approaches to assessment. Psychosocial Approaches to Negative Symptoms in Psychosis will be a valuable resource for both clinicians working in mental health settings and researchers seeking to study negative symptoms.

This earnest and scholarly book is a wonderful invitation to clinicians of all spiritual leanings and people with personal experiences of psychosis to engage in a respectful dialogue about the meaning of extreme states of mind. Without this dialogue all parties who care about the meanings expressed in psychosis risk talking at each other rather than to each other, which would be a great loss for everyone. This book encourages an essential conversation among stakeholders, clinical and personal, that examines the language and ideas we use to speak about psychosis, an experience that has deep roots in our shared humanity.

— Michael Garrett, MD, SUNY Downstate, author Psychotherapy for Psychosis Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychodynamic Treatment

In this excellent and timely book, philosophically and spiritually minded clinicians move beyond critique to develop imaginative and generative possibilities for understanding mental difference without falling into overused, and for many deeply problematic, pathologizing frames. It’s a welcome addition! 

— Bradley Lewis, MD, PhD, New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study

Marie Brown and Marilyn Charles have assembled a book that bridges different perspectives and disciplines to contextualize and complicate women’s experiences of psychosis through culture, the body, spirituality, and psychiatry. Reading Women and Psychosis itself becomes a polyphonic experience that changes how we understand what psychosis is, how it has been construed, and for women, with what consequences. 

— Annie Rogers, PhD, Hampshire College, author of Incandescent Alphabets: Psychosis and the Enigma of Language

Women & Psychosis offers an inspiring example of how lived experience, clinical insight, and critical theory can be woven together to illuminate a complex set of psychological issues. By challenging monolithic thinking about madness – whether by psychiatrists, patients, or feminist scholars – the authors are able to explore a much greater diversity of women's experiences. A major contribution!

— Gail A. Hornstein, PhD, Mount Holyoke College and author of Agnes's Jacket: A Psychologist's Search for the Meanings of Madness