Books by Division 42 Members

Drug Use is so common among people who enter therapy that most practitioners should be prepared to encounter it among their clients. Sometimes drugs or alcohol use may be the client's main problem; other times, their use exacerbates existing problems. In both cases, patients often fail to disclose the fact that they use drugs. Many therapists don't know how to get this information-or the best way to treat patients when they do disclose use.

This practical and readable book addresses all of these concerns It pints out ways that therapists can deduce whether a client might be abusing drugs or alcohol. It then reviews the etiology of drug dependence and different methods of assessment, treatment, and relapse prevention. The authors provide numerous case examples, a list of resources, and an overview of the treatment community (both self-help and professional). 1998. Approximately 344 pages.

With increasing frequency, psychotherapy practitioners are encountering patients who struggle with enduring physical illnesses, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, AIDS, diabetes, and kidney disease. Chronic physical illnesses have a common psychological thread: The individual's experience of life will never again return to the pre-illness sense of self, of options, of invulnerability, of obliviousness to the body's functioning. The individual's strongest wish is to return to "normal." The psychotherapist's strongest wish is to heal. The uncertainty, progression, and unpredictability of illness create anxiety in the therapist as well as in the patient.

Treating People With Chronic Disease: A Psychological Guide is an accessible volume that offers practitioners straightforward guidelines for overcoming these anxieties and helping people adjust to lives drastically changed by chronic illness. Each chapter presents a different view of illness from a different vantage point, reinforcing the author's holographic model of treatment. Detailed case examples in support of the text are offered throughout. In addition to treatment strategies, the authors address environment, countertransference issues, and the special needs of children and families struck by chronic physical disease. An invaluable, comprehensive guide to related sources, useful for the chronically ill as well as for practitioners, is also included. Written by Carol D. Goodheart, a psychologist, and Martha H. Lansing, a physician, this volume builds a bridge connecting psychology and medicine, mind and body, in innovative, practical ways. 1997. 229 pages.

One of the most litigious areas of practice in psychology today involves the treatment of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse--particularly concerning patients who recover memories while in treatment. This volume advises practitioners on therapeutic strategies and interventions that help to heal these vulnerable patients while minimizing the risk of ethical and legal violations. According to the authors of this volume, ethical therapy is effective therapy.

Patients claiming childhood sexual abuse are among the most traumatized of any practitioner's clients, and psychotherapists working with these patients face unique challenges. Some patients are conflicted about what to believe or how to interpret their memories. This volume begins with a presentation of the current knowledge base about memory and the accuracy of recovered memories. The authors then provide a review of ethical and legal challenges that have been made against psychotherapists--both by patients and by the parents of patients--because therapists need to be aware of the types of charges that may be made against them. The volume also analyzes methods currently in use by therapists to aid in memory retrieval (e.g., body work, guided imagery) and comments on the extent to which these techniques place therapists at risk for ethical or legal challenges. Therapeutic techniques that have been shown to be both therapeutically sound and ethically acceptable are highlighted throughout. The authors also provide straightforward advice on documentation, language for note-taking, and consultation and supervision practices.

Written in easy-to-read nonlegalese, this volume is essential reading for any practicing psychologist, social worker, or psychiatrist who works with patients struggling with recovered memories of abuse. 1997. 197 pages.

Audio Tapes

For more than a year now, two CE workshops endorsed by Division 42 have been offered around the nation.  One of the workshops teaches enrollees how to create fee for service practices abd to exit the health care delivery system.  The second teaches enrollees how to practice effectively in a managed care environment.   Both workshops have been designed to aid collegues to meet the challenges of the profound transformations taking place in the country's health care delivery system.

The Board of Directors of Division 42 is committed to the dissemination of information not only about evolving changes in the control and financing of care but as well about the possibilities for each of us to mount creative responses that will empower our consumers and ourselves.  Helplessness, apathy, and a sense of futility are our worst enemies.  As a member benefit, then, the Division can provide you at close cost a ninety-minute tape of the highlights of the four workshop days as created by the workshops' leaders.  The tape has been developed to give you a much greater understanding of the forces shaping your practice and to teach you a variety of ways you can position yourselves to take the best possible care of those who enter your consulting rooms and of yourselves, as well.

Jeff McKee
Saturday, April 25, 1998