An Integrated Approach to Family Work for Psychosis

An Integrated Approach to Family Work for Psychosis is a manual for using cognitive behavioural approach to working with families of people with severe mental illness. The authors, all experienced clinicians, discuss the various core components of family work, including what constitutes family work, when it might be offered, and how and where it might be applied. As well as these core concerns, the authors also look at reframing challenges and overcoming common personal and external barriers to effective family work. Each chapter can be read individually or as part of the integrated manual. The central argument of the book is that family work must be individualised and it offers a clear approach to engaging and working with families to ensure that this happens, including guidance on how to link components of a service user's plan with their family's strengths and strategies for reducing stress. The book addressed both theory and practice, and concentrates on the experience of mental illness for the service user and their family, providing a focus for intervention. Exploring family work as an integrated psychosocial and educational support strategy, this manual will increase the confidence and competence of new family workers - mental health workers, social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists - and broaden the knowledge of those already working in the area.

Gina Smith, RMN, RGN, Dip Thorn, MSc is a consultant nurse in the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. She is a co-facilitator on the Integrated Approaches to Serious Mental Illness Course at the University of Gloucestershire, a Visiting Fellow at the University of the West of England and the Clinical Director of Studies for the postgraduate mental health practice programme at the University of Bath.

Annie Higgs holds a BSc in community studies and a postgraduate diploma certificate in education. She is an honorary tutor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London