Integrated Behavioral Healthcare: Prospects, Issues, and Opportunities (Practical Resources for the Mental Health Professional) [Hardcover]

Nicholas A. Cummings (Author), Victoria Follette (Author), Steven C. Hayes (Author), William O'Donohue (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0121987612 | ISBN-13: 978-0121987619 | Publication Date: September 11, 2001 | Edition: 1

Healthcare is now practiced in a different financial and delivery system than it was two decades ago. Currently managed care defines what is treated, how, by whom and for what reimbursement. Mental health professionals have been greatly impacted by these changes to their practice, and yet, there is little understanding of exactly what it is and where it is going. The present volume explores these issues, prospects and opportunities from the vantage of mental health /medical professionals and managed care executives who are in the very process of implementing changes to the existing system of managed care. Behavioral healthcare will be integrated into medical practice in the future for sound clinical and economic reasons. The present volume, edited by four prominent mental health professionals provides a roadmap of the emerging directions integrated behavioral healthcare is taking and lays out the steps the mental health professional needs to take--in training, and modifying her/his clinical practice--to adapt to the new system of healthcare.

Key Features
* Leading Experts in managed care
* Nicholas Cummings, Father of behavioral managed care
* Multidisciplinary approach

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

There exists a conceptual and practical division between professionals that help people with physical/medical problems and those that help people with mental/behavioral problems. In this dualism, individuals with physical problems, like a broken bone, go to a medical doctor and individuals with behavioral problems, like a broken marriage, go to a mental health professional.

If all medical problems were due to physical causes and all mental problems were due to psychosocial causes, then diagnosis and treatment would be clear. However, this is not the case. Broken bones are caused by behavioral problems (e.g., marital abuse, alcoholism, poor diet). Medical problems are treated by behavioral changes (diet, exercise, and other lifestyle changes). And most medical treatments require, and can be defeated, by behavioral compliance problems with the prescribed regimen (pill taking, showing up for the scheduled procedures, etc.). Moreover, mental health problems can be caused and treated by physiological factors (neuron-chemical imbalances, endocrine problems, and psychotropic drugs). Thus, fragmenting the treatment of the mental and physical problems into two distinct realms makes little conceptual or practical sense.

Integrated Behavioral Healthcare describes the promise of integrating behavioral and medical care in the primary care setting - a move that recently has been gaining momentum. It provides a roadmap of the emerging directions integrated behavioral healthcare is taking and lays out the steps the mental health professional needs to take, in training and in modifying their clinical practice, to adapt to the new system of healthcare.

About the Author

Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D. is the President of the Foundation for Behavioral Health and Chairman of the Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Foundation, Inc. He was the founding CEO of American Biodyne (MedCo/Merck, then Merit, now Magellan Behavioral Care). He is also the former President of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Cummings was the founder of the four campuses of the California School of Professional Psychology, the National Academies of Practice, the American Managed Behavioral Healthcare Association, and the National Council of Professional Schools of Psychology. He was also the Chief Psychologist (Retired) at Kaiser Permanente. He was the former Executive Director of the Mental Research Institute. Currently, Dr. Cummings is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Victoria Follette is a professor of psychology and associate dean of Arts and Science at UNR who specializes in the treatment of trauma. Dr. Follette graduated from the University of Memphis and the University of Washington and is interested in the education of psychologists for the new millennium.

Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of twenty books and more than 275 scientific articles, his career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. In 1992 he was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th "highest impact" psychologist in the world during 1986-1990 based on the citation impact of his writings. Dr.Hayes has been President of Division 25 of the American Psychological Association, of the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology and of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy. He was the first Secretary-Treasurer of the American Psychological Society, and is currently co-chair of the Practice Guidelines Coalition. This summer he received the Don F. Hake Award for Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications from Division 25 of the American Psychological Association.

William O'Donohue is the Nicholas Cummings Professor of Organized Behavioral Healthcare at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Philosophy. He has authored over 100 articles and chapters and co-edited more than 15 books.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 347 pages
• Publisher: Academic Press; 1 edition (September 11, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0121987612
• ISBN-13: 978-0121987619
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,664,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I came to psychology because it was a field that mixed art and science. A college student in California during the 1960s (Loyola Marymount) I was initially interested in experiential, humanistic, human potential, and Eastern traditions, but was also drawn toward behavior therapy by the dialectic of its utopianism (e.g., Walden Two) and its scientific rigor. Fascinated by flooding and implosive therapy, my first undergraduate paper in psychology was on applying exposure to feelings, not just situations. I'm still grinding on that same idea in some ways.

I had a hard time getting into graduate school, and bounced around for a couple years with a new baby, doing remodeling for slum lords, living on a commune, and working as an environmental activist. After a year at San Diego State in a program that admitted all with good test scores, I finally figured out that I had a bad letter from a professor. Correcting that, I was finally admitted several places and went to West Virginia University, where I got my Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1977.

I wanted a psychology of human functioning that could transform how we live in our homes, offices, and clinics on the basis of science. Behavior analysis seemed closest but I came to believe that it would never be adequate without a better analysis of language and cognition.

After an internship year at Brown University, I took my first job, UNC-Greensboro in 1976. I stayed there for 10 years. A few years after I arrived I developed a panic disorder and after a year or two of sliding backward, I began to apply some of these various influences to my own struggles.

My students and I roughed out ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) in the early 1980's, did a few outcome studies, and then put outcome studies on hold wile we developed the basic science (Relational Frame Theory and work on rule-governed behavior), the philosophy of science (functional contextualism), and the techniques, measures, and processes that would become ACT in it modern form. Most of that work I did at the University of Nevada, where I have been since 1986.

In 1999 the first ACT book appeared, followed by the RFT book in 2001, and the work really began to take off, both empirically and in term of notariety. My first popular book, Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life (2005), projected the work (and me personally) into a higher level of public visibility (Time, O, Salon.com etc).

I spend my days writing, teaching, researching, helping my students, answering emails, hugging my wife, playing with my new baby, and hanging out with my older kids (14, 17, and 36). I spend a lot of time trying to support the ACT and RFT work of others world wide.

Those interested in ACT and RFT should explore www.contextualpsychology.org There you will find list serves for professionals and an open enrollment "ACT for the Public" list serve that is designed to help public members work with these concepts. There is also a list of ACT therapists worldwide.

Personal Honors and such

In 1992 I was listed by APS as the 30th "highest impact" psychologist in the world during 1986-1990

I've been President of Division 25 (Behavior Analysis) of APA, of the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology and of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy. I chaired the organizing committee for the APS, was its first Secretary-Treasurer, and first editor of the APS Observer. I received the Hake Award for Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications from Division 25 of the APA. In 1999, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala appointed me to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse.

What this work is about is creating a scientific psychology more adequate to the challenge of the human condition, and getting it into the hands of others at low cost and with minimal hierarchy. If you care about that work and there is a way I can be of help, let me know.

- S