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Social workers provide more mental health services than any other profession, yet recent biomedical trends in psychiatry appear to minimize the importance of their traditional concerns, which focus on the social environment that accompanies mental disorders and their treatment. In twenty-four chapters written by distinguished scholars this book not only calls attention to this emerging problem and challenges conventional mental health beliefs and practices, but also raises provocative questions: Has social work become too closely associated with psychiatry and too quick to adopt a medical approach? Has the focus on the therapeutic relationship negated social work's commitment to social reform? Is the social worker marginalized by the emphasis in mental health on biochemistry and psychopharmacology?
This book calls on social workers and other health care professionals to be more skeptical about diagnosis, community treatment, evidence-based practice, psychotherapy, medications, and managed care.
Introduction: Critical Perspectives, by Stuart A. Kirk
Assessment and Diagnosis
Balancing act: Assessing strengths in mental health practice, by Dennis Saleebey
The Social Context of Interventions
The limits of diagnostic criteria: The role of social context in clinicians'judgments of mental disorder, by Derek Hsieh, Stuart A. Kirk
Evidence-Guided Practice
Mapping practice: Assessment, context, and social justice, by Mark Mattaini
Psychotherapy and Social Work
Disorders versus problems in living in DSM: Rethinking social work's relationship to psychiatry, by Jerry C. Wakefield
Questioning Psychiatric Medications
Diagnosis—an act of faith: The probabilistic nature of diagnosis, by William R. Nugent
Ethics, Laws, And Regulations
Assessing the scientific status of schizophrenia, by John Bola, Deborah Pitts
To stem the tide of degeneracy: The eugenic impulse in social work, by Amy LaPan, Tony Platt
Assertive Community Treatment: The case against the "best tested" evidence-based community treatment for severe mental illness, by Tomi Gomory
Empowerment—The foundation for social work practice in mental health, by Stephen M. Rose
Self-help mental health agencies, by Steven P. Segal
Power, gender, and the self: Reflections on improving mental health for males and females, by Sarah Rosenfield, Kathy Pottick
Evidence-based practice: Breakthrough or buzzword?, by William J. Reid, Julanne Colvin
Critical thinking, evidence-based practice and mental health, by Eileen Gambrill
Mental health and practice guidelines: Panacea or pipedream?, by Matthew O. Howard, Tonya Edmond, Michael G. Vaughn
Putting Humpty together again: Treatment of mental disorders and pursuit of justice in social workís mission, by Jerry C. Wakefield
The problem of psychotherapy in social work, by William Epstein
The misfortunes of behavioral social work: Misprized, misread, and misconstrued, by Bruce A. Thyer
Clinical psychopharmacology trials: "Gold standard" or foolís gold?, by David Cohen
Treatment of newly diagnosed psychosis without anti-psychotic drugs: The Soteria project, by John Bola, Loren Mosher, David Cohen
Psychosocial side effects of drug treatment of youth, by Tally Moses, Stuart A. Kirk
Social work, mental health, and mental disorders: The ethical dimensions, by Frederic Reamer
Managed care and mental health, by Kevin Corcoran, Stephen Gorin, Cynthia Moniz
Involuntary medications of the mentally ill: Continuing controversy, changing scene, by Donald Dickson