Evidence-Based Mental Health Practice: A Textbook [Paperback]

Robert E. Drake (Author), Matthew R. Merrens (Author), David Lynde (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 5, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0393704432 | ISBN-13: 978-0393704433 | Edition: 1

The movement to make medicine more scientific has evolved over many decades but the specific term evidence-based medicine was introduced in 1990 to refer to a systematic approach to helping doctors to apply scientific evidence to decision-making at the point of contact with a specific consumer.

As the philosophy, major tenets, and techniques of the movement have evolved, evidence-based medicine has strongly influenced individual health care decision-making, the practices offered in health care programs, and the structure of medical and public health systems. Evidence-based medicine has also begun to influence the field of mental health. As support for evidence-based medicine grows in mental health, the need to clarify its fundamental principles also increases. In dealing with the new era of evidence-based practice, mental health practitioners are now confronted with a sense of obligation to understand these practices and to implement them in order to provide the best available services to consumers. This book explores some of the complex challenges in implementing EBPs, and highlights the meaningful opportunities that are inherent in this paradigm shift. This comprehensive textbook will become an essential primer for all practitioners and students who are grappling with the new age of evidence-based practice.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert E. Drake, M.D., Ph.D., is the Andrew Thomson Professor of Psychiatry and Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and the Director of the New Hampshire-Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center. He has focused on developing and evaluating innovative community programs for persons with severe mental disorders.

David W. Lynde, M.S.W., LICSW, is the Training Manager for the West Institute at the New Hampshire-Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center and faculty member of Dartmouth Medical School. David provides training and consultation regarding the implementation Evidence-Based Practices.

Matthew R. Merrens, Ph.D., is Visiting Professor of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School and the New Hampshire-Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center. He has had extensive experience in clinical psychology and community mental health and has authored and edited a number of textbooks in psychology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (April 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393704432
• ISBN-13: 978-0393704433
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #495,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Critical Content for Knowing More About Psychiatric Rehabilitation, December 19, 2010

By 

Thomas H. Pyle (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evidence-Based Mental Health Practice: A Textbook (Paperback)

When serious mental illness strikes, it can devastate. Mental illness often shreds people's lives. But there is hope. Fortunately, thanks to medical advances, today things are different for individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Instead of just the old-style, clinically pessimistic "medical model" with its objectifying focus on illness and symptomology, there is now the possibility of a more holistic, individualized, person-centered concept of recovery. People with psychiatric disabilities today can and do get better. They can recover. While recovery, a uniquely personal journey, may not mean a return to life unblemished as before mental illness, it can and often does mean a new life of meaning and fulfillment attained through acceptance, determination, and perseverance--and, the application of evidence-based practices.

A significant factor in this new approach to recovery from mental illness has been the evolution of evidence-based practices in the mental health field. A significant aid for understanding these practices is Evidence-Based Mental Health Practices: A Textbook, edited by Robert E. Drake, Matthew R. Merrens, and David W. Lynde, all from the New Hampshire-Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center, one of the leading thought centers for psychiatric rehabilitation in the country today. Drake, Merrens, and Lynde have assembled twenty essays by themselves and other leading thinkers in their field covering the background, principles, implementation, and descriptions of the six now established evidence-based mental health practices. These are: assertive community treatment, integrated dual-disorder treatment, supported employment, illness management and recovery, family psychoeducation, and medications management.

Individuals with SMI and their loved ones, as well as providers and policy makers, all must learn more about what this thorough text explains. Combined with qualitative elements of consumer "lived-experience" and provider clinical judgment, these evidence-based practices provide the foundation for the science and application of psychiatric rehabilitation. Drake, Merrens, Lynde and their colleagues do a good job to explain it all in easily understandable language with helpful titles and margin guides. Although fully priced like the textbook that it is for use in academic programs, its important content is easily accessible by the average reader.

All who wish and need to have a fuller understanding of where mental health treatment is heading, and to help overcome the challenges still before it, will do well to read this book--and to become acquainted with its many contributors who are all important national proponents. Family members in particular should learn more about the evidence-based practices it describes so better to know about, participate in, and advocate for the improved care of their loved ones that is the promise, if not yet the full reality, of evidence-based mental health practices.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evidence-Based Mental Health Practice: A Textbook By Robert E. Drake, October 4, 2009

By 

L. Fury "LAF" (NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evidence-Based Mental Health Practice: A Textbook (Paperback)

I am currently using this text for one of my graduate courses called, Evidence-based Practice in Mental Health. I am an MSW student and have found this book to be of great use and help in understanding both the positives and negatives towards mental health practice moving toward only being recognized if it is evidence-based. I would reccommend this book to anyone who is particularly interested in Mental Health practice or is teaching a course on evidence-based MHP. I feel that the book is completely comprehensible and not overly redundant. The information could be very useful for all students but especially for students who are unfamiliar with evidence-based practices and what that really entails and means. I feel the book does a great job at explaining all the necessary information students should be critically appraising and thinking about in terms of their own personality and theoretical orientations that they choose to come from when approaching therapy or counseling.

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evidence-Based Mental Health Practice: A Textbook, January 4, 2007

By 

D. Perkins "Bookworm27" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evidence-Based Mental Health Practice: A Textbook (Paperback)

This is an excellent learning tool for anyone interested in learning more about Evidence based practice! It is easy to understand, I highly recommend this.