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This new book, drawing on the author's distinguished career in front-line psychiatric practice, describes how to bring patient and prescriber together in an active partnership whereby there is better understanding of the positive and negative elements of drug prescription. At present there is a gap between expectations, with doctors not always able to admit their ignorance of some aspects of drug action, and patients kept unaware of these uncertainties. Balanced decision-making with joint involvement is needed to separate those drugs that are needed regularly to maintain health, those that are only needed when required and those that are mere fashion accessories. Greater care is needed over the explanation of the first prescription, the expected duration of treatment and the plans for eventual withdrawal. The consequence of a better partnership will be less over-prescribing, a reduction of polypharmacy and a lessened need for deprescribing, the planned systematic reduction of drug treatment that has got completely out of control.Concentrating on routine prescribing for psychiatric and mental health disorders rather than unusual conditions and illustrated with real-life anecdotes and case histories, this is essential reading for trainee and practising psychiatrics, general practitioners and pharmacists.

As the demographics shift within the US population, the importance of culture on mental health diagnosis and treatment has become critical for education and clinical training in psychiatry. While it's impossible to gain an in-depth understanding of every culture, clinicians need to have the skills and knowledge required to provide culturally respectful care for an increasingly diverse clinical population. By explaining fundamental concepts in cultural psychiatry using a case-based format, clinicians and educators in the mental health fields will be able to reduce cultural clashes and unproductive clinical encounters. Although similar books have focused on providing guidelines for working with discrete populations (e.g., African Americans, Asian Americans, LGBTQ), the purpose of Sociocultural Issues in Psychiatry is to enhance clinicians'knowledge and skills by translating theory into practice across diverse patient populations and clinical contexts. Mental health clinicians at all levels, trainees, or practitioners, will benefit from the content and education provided in this book.

This book has grown out of our individual experiences as well as our shared ones; out of our differences as well as our commonalities; and out of our conflicts as well as our convergences. Among us there are dif­ ferences in gender; in individual, family, community, and racial histo­ ries; in life experiences, identities, and career paths; and even in reasons for writing this book. Of course there are also commonalities. We enjoy one another's company; we enjoy working together; and we feel en­ riched from our collaboration. We have written this book out of our complete selves, not just our professional selves. The original objective of our book was to present to practitioners of psychotherapy, trainers of psychotherapists, and psychotherapy stu­ dents a model of conducting psychotherapy that actively acknowledges and builds upon the ethnic and racial heritage of both therapist and client. We have found that to fulfill that objective we need also to acknowledge and build upon the psychological ecology of the therapist and client; and we also need to outline the kind of research necessary if we are to develop and evaluate the perspectives presented here. Those perspectives are embodied in what we have come to call the ethnic validity model (EVM) of psychotherapy.