Written by distinguished academic and Editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry, and a now retired NHS consultant psychiatrist, this latest edition of Models for Mental Disorders reflects the significant changes in clinical practice and understanding in the last four years. With increased emphasis on the multidisciplinary approach now being used in all mental health facilities in Europe, the two new chapters on application of models in multidisciplinary teams and how understanding of models improves communication are particularly timely and relevant. The book also features an easy-to-read new appendix providing a glossary of commonly-used terms in psychiatry for the interested lay-reader. An adopted title on many psychology courses throughout the UK, this fourth edition continues to provide an invaluable introduction to the different models used in evaluating mental health, and is recommended reading for all those interested in mental health and illness.

Models for Mental Disorder, first published in 1987, anticipated the move towards integration of psychiatric services into multidisciplinary teams (doctor, psychologist, nurse, social worker, etc) and the need to bring together the different philosophies of mental illness. Peter Tyrer has identified four different models of mental disorder that are relevant to clinical practice: the disease, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural and social models. Each model is described and reviewed, with reference to case studies and illustrations, to show how it relates to mental health disorders and can be used to interpret and manage these disorders. The book has been widely read and is often used for training purposes so that each professional can understand and appreciate that differences in viewpoint are often a consequence of one or more models being used in a different way rather than a fundamental schism in approach. Since the fourth edition was published in 2005, the disciplines of mental health have moved even closer together with the growth of assertive outreach and more integrated community teams. This, combined with the greater awareness of mental health among users of services, which leads to more penetrating and informed questions at interviews with professionals, has emphasised the need for a wider understanding of these models. Table of contents: Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Disease Model Chapter 3 The Psychodynamic Model Chapter 4 The Cognitive-Behavioural Model Chapter 5 The Social Model Chapter 6 Working Models in Practice Appendix 1 Teaching Exercise: Teaching the Models Glossary of Terms

Dr. Niall (Jock) McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist who uses philosophical analysis to show that modern psychiatry has no scientific basis. This startling conclusion dovetails neatly with the growing evidence that psychiatric drug treatment is crude and damaging. Needless to say, this message is not popular with mainstream psychiatrists. However, in this book, he shows how the principles of information processing give a formal theory of mind that generates a model of mental disorder as a psychological phenomenon.

Annotation.

Always educational, if sometimes polemical, this clearly written and entertaining book captures the various models of mental illness currently circulating in mental health. Using plain and accessible language, with a sharp and witty glossary to help, four models - disease, psychodynamic, cognitive behavioural and social - are given a fair chance from a sympathetic pen. And then, like a cold shower in the morning, painfully opening your eyes and shocking your mind into gear, Tyrer dismembers them all in a coruscating analysis of their inadequacies and excesses. He then reconstructs them pragmatically in a universal "conjugal" model. At a time when new models of community mental health are being developed throughout the world and mental health is becoming increasingly important, especially in England, anyone working in mental health or using services will find this book is a must! Tim Kendall, National Clinical Director for Mental Health, NHS England

Kiesler's Beyond the Disease Model of Mental Disorder goes beyond recent volumes which argue that psychotropic medications are being overused and abused in contemporary mental health settings. Elliott Valenstein, for example, an emeritus professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, recently argues that people should be highly suspicious of the claim that all mental illness is primarily a biochemical disorder. In his 1998 book, Blaming the Brain: The Truth about Drugs and Mental Health, Valenstein does not argue that drugs never work or that patients should discontinue taking medication. Valenstein's central point, instead, is that drugs do not attack the real cause of a disorder, since biochemical theories are an unproven hypothesis and probably a false one. Inasmuch as Kiesler's volume is concerned exclusively with scientific explanations of mental disorders, it does not review at all the evidence for psychotropic medications or for other treatments of mental disorders. Kiesler does highlight a message similar to that of Valenstein, who rejects the hypothesis that mental illness is primarily a biochemical disorder. After a comprehensive review of the relevant scientific evidence, Kiesler concludes that henceforth the study of mental disorders must be guided by multicausal theories and research that systematically include an array of biological, psychological, and sociocultural causal factors. Kiesler adds that, in order for this to be accomplished, the mental health field and the public at large must first abandon the invalid monocausal biomedical (disease) model of mental disorder.

My ideas for this book have been evolving over the last several years as I have been working in the animal modeling area and have seen it change rather dramatically. There have been tremendous advances, both in methodology and in conceptualization, yet the literature is scattered in journals encompassing many disciplines. In particular, there have been only very limited attempts to write about the philosophical, conceptual, and controversial issues in this field; to pull together diverse findings; and to provide some general perspective on its future. As will probably be apparent, I am a clinical psychiatrist who also has a fundamental interest in animal behavior, especially primate social behavior. I entered the field from a clinical research standpoint to devel op some animal models of depression after being stimulated to do so by Dr. William Bunney, then at the National Institute of Mental Health and now at the University of California-Irvine. The field has grown rapidly since then and there is considerable research activity. Indeed, the re search activity has grown more rapidly than our conceptualization of what animal models are and are not. Animal preparations are now available for studying specific aspects of certain types of psychopathology. Thoughtful workers in the animal modeling field no longer talk about comprehensive models but rather about more limited experimental preparations in animals for studying certain specific aspects of human psychopathology.

My ideas for this book have been evolving over the last several years as I have been working in the animal modeling area and have seen it change rather dramatically. There have been tremendous advances, both in methodology and in conceptualization, yet the literature is scattered in journals encompassing many disciplines. In particular, there have been only very limited attempts to write about the philosophical, conceptual, and controversial issues in this field; to pull together diverse findings; and to provide some general perspective on its future. As will probably be apparent, I am a clinical psychiatrist who also has a fundamental interest in animal behavior, especially primate social behavior. I entered the field from a clinical research standpoint to devel op some animal models of depression after being stimulated to do so by Dr. William Bunney, then at the National Institute of Mental Health and now at the University of California-Irvine. The field has grown rapidly since then and there is considerable research activity. Indeed, the re search activity has grown more rapidly than our conceptualization of what animal models are and are not. Animal preparations are now available for studying specific aspects of certain types of psychopathology. Thoughtful workers in the animal modeling field no longer talk about comprehensive models but rather about more limited experimental preparations in animals for studying certain specific aspects of human psychopathology.