Recovery from Disability. Manual of Psychiatric Rehabilitation

Robert Paul Liberman, M.D.,
With Foreword by John A. Talbott, M.D.

The time is right for recovery from serious mental disorders. Mental health professionals and state and local mental health agencies are responding to a national call for action on recovery: from the President’s Commission on Mental Health, the Surgeon General, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. But how can recovery from mental disorders become a reality? Recovery From Disability describes the principles and practices of psychiatric rehabilitation to bridge the gap between what is known and what actually can be used to achieve recovery for patients in real-life mental health programs. The book draws on Dr. Robert Paul Liberman’s 40 years of designing, testing, and disseminating innovative treatments for persons with mental disabilities. Illuminating up-to-date treatment techniques that reflect a consensus of experts regarding evidence-based practices, Dr. Liberman shows how recovery can be the rule rather than the exception.

This practical book addresses day-to-day realities faced by practitioners who must wrestle with the individualized needs and personal goals of each patient while drawing up a rehabilitation roadmap to recovery. Written in a down-to-earth manner with minimal jargon, this clinical manual is intended for everyday use. Brimming with clear advice and ideas for effective services, the book is relevant to the work of all mental health disciplines, administrators, consumer advocates, and clinicians with all levels of experience. Practice-based evidence is highlighted by an abundance of real-life examples and a host of graphic aids. The author addresses the particular needs of Latino patients and takes up the latest developments in rehabilitation, such as illness management, social and independent living skills training, neurocognitive pharmacology, cognitive remediation, and use of computers in rehabilitation. Each chapter contains information, techniques, and treatment methods that enable clinicians to:

• Help patients select realistic yet personally meaningful goals for enriching their lives
• Teach patients how to stabilize their symptoms and cognitive impairments
• Train patients in social and independent living skills for empowerment and autonomy
• Educate family members and other caregivers to collaborate with mental health professionals in overcoming their loved one’s disability
• Provide access to vocational rehabilitation, including supported employment
• Facilitate comprehensiveness, continuity, and coordination of competency-based rehabilitation, using personal support specialists, assertive community treatment, and integrated mental health care

Dr. Liberman also describes how to customize services that are effective for individuals with more than one disorder, whose disorder is refractory to customary pharmacological and psychosocial treatments, or whose adaptation to community life is marred by aggressive behavior. With its wealth of rich and immediately applicable treatment approaches, Recovery From Disability will help professionals equip mentally disabled patients to reach their personally relevant goals and progress on the road to recovery.

Contents

Preface. Acknowledgments. Introduction. Terminology. Rehabilitation as the road to recovery. Principles and practice of psychiatric rehabilitation. Illness management. Functional assessment. Social skills training. Involving families in treatment and rehabilitation. Vocational rehabilitation. Vehicles for delivering rehabilitation services. Special services for special people. New developments for rehabilitation and recovery. Index.

Reviews

"Recovery from Disability is a valuable, practical, and comprehensive guide for mental health professionals. Dr. Liberman’s visionary combination of humanism and empiricism offers a beacon of hope to clinicians, patients with serious psychiatric disorders, and their families. It is destined to become a classic in the field of psychiatric rehabilitation."—Kim T. Mueser, Ph.D., Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center; Professor of Psychiatry and Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire

"Dr. Robert Liberman, a pioneer of research in psychiatric rehabilitation and family psychoeducation, has given us a practitioner–friendly manual with a new and eagerly awaited focus. New developments in our field have led to the golden promise of recovery from the disabilities of mental illness. This book provides the scientific, evidence-based, person-empowering techniques that facilitate its realization."—Harriet P. Lefley, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida

"As a founder of the field of psychiatric rehabilitation, Dr. Robert Liberman has for several decades modeled persistence, integrity, and using science to help people achieve their goals. The rest of us are immeasurably enhanced by this summary of his thinking. He deserves a lifetime achievement award for this book alone."—Robert E. Drake, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire

About the Authors

Robert Paul Liberman, M.D., is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, and Director of the UCLA Psychiatric Rehabilitation Program, at the University of California, Los Angeles.