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Mental Health Practice

A guide to compassionate care

  • 2nd Edition - August 29, 2008
  • Latest edition
  • Author: Peter N Watkins
  • Language: English

"Mental Health Practice: a guide to compassionate care" examines the relationship between mental health professionals and people using services during the recovery process. The… Read more

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Description

"Mental Health Practice: a guide to compassionate care" examines the relationship between mental health professionals and people using services during the recovery process. The disabling distress experienced by many people with mental health problems is viewed from a holistic, person-centred perspective with the road to recovery being seen as the result of true collaboration between professionals and service users.

Key features

  • The first in-depth exploration of the intentional use of self in mental health care and its significance in the recovery journey, extensively updated
  • New content on action research, eco-psychology and organisational culture
  • Story boxes illustrating key themes in compassionate care
  • Self-enquiry boxes engaging readers in reflective practice
  • A primer on humanistic psychology and its relevance to mental health care

Readership

Mental Health Nurses

Table of contents

Part 1 Meaning and Behaviour


1 The nature of human distress

2 Social exclusion in the experience of distress

3 Transcultural issues and the experience of distress

4 Gender issues and the experience of distress

5 Creative solutions to crises

6 Working with risk

7 A person-centred approach to assessment

8 Creating pathways to recovery

9 Humanistic approaches to helping and healing

Part 2 The working alliance


10 Beginnings and the working alliance

11 A framework for the working alliance

12 The working alliance as an enabling relationship

13 The working alliance with families and carers

14 Reluctance, resistance and disengagement

15 Endings and the working alliance

Part 3 The therapeutic use of self


16 Dynamics of therapeutic care

17 Intentional use of self in developmentally needed or reparative relationships

18 Person to person relationships

19 Spiritual dimensions of therapeutic care

20 The shadow side of helping

Part 4 Personal management


21 Personal development in professional education

22 Taking care of ourselves

23 Being a reflective practitioner

Review quotes

"This second edition has much new content relevant for today's mental health services. Particular tribute is paid to the strengths of people who use mental health services and to their rights to determine the nature of their recovery journey."
Mental Health Practice, October 2009, Vol. 13, No. 2

Product details

  • Edition: 2
  • Latest edition
  • Published: December 5, 2008
  • Language: English

About the author

PW

Peter N Watkins

Affiliations and expertise
Mental Health Nurse with the East Suffolk Outreach Team, Local Health Partnerships NHS Trust, Ipswich, UK; Formerly Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at Suffolk College, Ipswich, UK