Thinking About Prescribing: The Psychology of Psychopharmacology With Diverse Youth and Families

Thinking About Prescribing is a new book that encourages pharmacotherapists to view the prescribing of psychiatric medication to young patients as the beginning of an ongoing alliance with youth and their parents or legal guardians. It emphasizes measured candor, vulnerability, and time, and utilizes the knowledge of more than two dozen experts to tackle topics such as the Common Factors approach, the Y-model of psychotherapy, utilizing the 30-minute Brief Pharmacotherapy Visit, enhancing medication adherence, adapting psychoeducation for culturally diverse populations, and cultivating a pharmacotherapeutic alliance via telehealth. The goal is to help pharmacotherapists mitigate the stigma, apprehension, or resignation their patients may have and build and maintain a trusting relationship that will be key to successful therapeutic outcomes.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 395 pages
Publication date: 19 March 2022
Publisher: American Psychiatric Association Publishing

Our remedies are only as effective as the way in which we administer them. This is the fundamental idea behind Thinking About Prescribing, a new book that encourages pharmacotherapists to see the prescribing of psychiatric medication to young patients not just as a part of a clinical visit, but as the beginning of an ongoing alliance with youth and their parents or legal guardians. The book makes the case for a partnership that doesn't rely on psychiatric jargon or an encyclopedic list of side effects, but instead on measured candor, vulnerability, and, most importantly, time.

Thinking About Prescribing leverages the knowledge of more than two dozen experts as it tackles topics that include:

The essential features of the Common Factors approach and the Y-model of psychotherapy, which highlights how relational aspects of pharmacotherapy are key to child & adolescent psychiatric practice, even for brief visits.

How best to utilize the 30-minute Brief Pharmacotherapy Visit (BPV), so that the alliance is nurtured and time is most efficiently utilized.

Techniques, adapted from evidence-based psychotherapies, to enhance medication adherence in diverse youth populations.

Approaches to adapt psychoeducation for culturally diverse populations, and consider why many youth & families may be skeptical of pharmacotherapeutic interventions.

Strategies to cultivate a pharmacotherapeutic alliance when engaging with patients and families via telehealth, including in the school setting.

Tips for pediatricians, advanced-practice clinicians, and other primary care providers who conduct pharmacotherapy.

The chapters feature key takeaways that distill the most salient points and that aid in knowledge retention. Rather than raise unrealistic expectations, two chapters acknowledge that medication alone may not be sufficient to address all mental health concerns.

Thinking About Prescribing is a valuable resource for pharmacotherapists, mental health professionals, and anyone who works with young people. It offers practical advice and insights that can help build stronger alliances with patients and families, and improve outcomes for mental health.

Weight: 630g
Dimension: 229 x 150 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781615373888