"Highly experienced practitioners of family therapy...Should be of interest to anyone in the health field." -- Psychiatric Services "Reading this book was a refreshing and stimulating experience.
The editors did a remarkable job in bringing together 24 different voices (contributors) to elaborate on and provide multiple and different vistas of the core book's theme.
I think that any person who reads this book will broaden his or her level of awareness of contemporary issues defining the diagnosis and treatment modalities offered in the mental health field and in medicine in general.
This book is extraordinarily relevant to the current crisis in the mental health field and medicine in general.
I highly recommend this book for all mental health therapists and physicians, particularly those working in psychiatry and primary-care settings.
It is my sincere hope that others enjoy the "poetic experience" of reading this book in the same way I did. ." -- Jose Bayona, MD, MPH, University of Texas--Houston Medical School
Acknowledgments. Introduction.Part I:Introductory: Setting the Stage for an Exploration of theInterface of Family Therapy and Medication. Keith, Biometaphorical Psychiatry: Family Therapy and the Poetics of Experience. Prosky, When More is Less: A Common Difficulty in Collaborative Treatment of Human Distress. Auerswald, Family Healing and Planetary Healing: Three Paradigms in Search of a Culture. Part II:Theoretical: Dilemmas and Contradictions in theApproaches of Family Systems Therapy andPsychopharmacological Practice. Freeman, Psychobiological Family Therapy: Toward an Ecological Psychiatry. Pakman, A Systemic Frame for Mental Health Practices. Schaefer, Medicating the Ghost in the Machine. Ducommun-Nagy, Can Giving Heal? Contextual Therapy and Biological Psychiatry. Mei, Rethinking Illness. Part III:Political: The Mechanisms Behind the Accelerating Growthof Psychopharmacological Practices.Duncan, Miller, Sparks, The Myth of the Magic Pill. Beder, Gosden, Mosher, Pig Pharma: Psychiatric Agenda Setting by Drug Companies. Part V:Seeking Health: Clients Describe their Experiences withFamily Therapy and PsychopharmacologicalTreatment. Dyer, The Headache. Messalink, Love of a Lifetime. Davis, The Therapy That Almost Wasn't, or Imaginary Therapy. Part IV: Clinical: Systems-based Practices asAlternatives to the Use of Medication. Flynn, Expert Therapist-beginning Therapist. Begel, The Jazz Consultation: Improvisation in Family Therapy. Ford, Goldilocks and the Three Bears Revisited. Benda, My Journey with Allison in Wonderland. Yaroshevsky, Bekiaris, Deficit of Attention Disorder. Auerswald, Thinking about Thinking in Family Therapy.
Phoebe Prosky, MSW, studied under family therapy pioneer Nathan Ackerman, MD, and worked and taught at the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy for fifteen years. Moving to Maine, she founded a family therapy training center and clinic which incorporates the spirit of Ackerman's work, embodied in an approach which emphasizes the conscious use of intuition and alternatives to the use of medication in the teaching and practice of family therapy.
David V. Keith, M.D. holds joint appointments as Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics at the State University of New York, Health Science Center at Syracuse. He is also the Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Director of Family Therapy. Dr. Keith's special interest is in the impact of relationships on health and illness. It is this interest which guides his teaching, academics, and clinical work in family therapy.