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Book How to Help the Suicidal Person to Choose Life  The Ethic of Care and Empathy as an Indispensable Tool for Intervention

Download or read book How to Help the Suicidal Person to Choose Life The Ethic of Care and Empathy as an Indispensable Tool for Intervention written by Kathleen Stephany and published by Bentham Science Publishers. This book was released on 2017-07-25 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suicide is a complex problem which is linked to socioeconomic problems as well as mental stress and illness. Healthcare professionals now know that the essential component of the suicidal person’s state of crisis is of a psychological and emotional nature. How to Help the Suicidal Person to Choose Life is a detailed guide to suicide prevention. The book recommends ethic of care and empathy as a tool for suicide intervention. Readers will learn about approaches that focus on suicide prevention that address the despairing emotional mind set of the suicidal person. Key features: • Features easy to understand learning guides for students • Emphasizes on suicide intervention strategies rather than identification of risk factors • highlights information from narrative case studies and psychological autopsies • includes practice and simulation exercises designed to enhance therapeutic modalities such as empathy, compassion, unconditional positive regard, connection, therapeutic alliance, the narrative action theoretical approach and mindful listening • Contains guidelines prescribed by the Aeschi working group for clinicians • Provides a list of bibliographic references and an appendix for other resources of information useful for suicide prevention This book is recommended for students and practicing professionals (in medicine, psychiatry, nursing, psychiatric nursing, psychology, counselling, teaching, social work, the military, police, paramedics etc.), and other first responders, volunteers or outreach workers who are confronted with situations where they have to assist people who are known or suspected of being suicidal.

Book The Ethic of Care  A Moral Compass for Canadian Nursing Practice  Revised Edition

Download or read book The Ethic of Care A Moral Compass for Canadian Nursing Practice Revised Edition written by Kathleen Stephany and published by Bentham Science Publishers. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is an increased use of technology and informatics, heavier workloads and constant changes in the way in which disease processes are managed. Yet, when compared with other health professionals, nurses still spend a great deal of time in direct contact with patients and clients. They stay at the bedside, listen to their stories, give comfort and advocate. The Ethic of Care: A Moral Compass for Canadian Nursing Practice is unique from other nursing ethics textbooks in several key ways. The book adds a heightened dimension to the already rich knowledge in the field of applied nursing ethics and the ethic of care. The author argues that the ethic of care, or the moral imperative to act justly, be the guiding compass for everything that nurses do. It is with passion and conviction that nurses are encouraged to embody the ethic of care as a "lived virtue." Nurses are also inspired to be the leaders of tomorrow by working toward achieving accountability and sustainability in the Canadian publicly funded health care system and by effectively addressing social inequities. At the end of each chapter the author conveys real life case studies, as derived from her experiences as a critical care nurse, psychiatric nurse clinician and former Coroner. These vignettes bring the subject to life and serve as a means for applying newly acquired ethical knowledge. The aim of this book is to inspire nurses to be as skillful, and compassionate as they can be so that they will leave every encounter with their clients, better than when they first arrived. The book attempts to inspire nurses to be ethical leaders for social change at the patient/client, community and global level. This revised edition of the book includes additional information about trauma-informed care to combat systemic racism and improve the health outcomes for Indigenous people; ethics, gender and sexual orientation is dealt with in an inclusive and sensitive way, and a new Code of Conduct has been included.

Book Cultivating Empathy  Inspiring Health Professionals to Communicate More Effectively  Revised Edition

Download or read book Cultivating Empathy Inspiring Health Professionals to Communicate More Effectively Revised Edition written by Kathleen Stephany and published by Bentham Science Publishers. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research demonstrates that even if empathy – the capacity to perceive or share emotions with other beings or objects – is not part of a person’s communication skill set, it can be taught. Empathy can, therefore be viewed as an acquired communication skill. Cultivating and practicing the skill of empathy among health care providers enhances the quality of care experienced by their patients which, in turn, can even improve work satisfaction for health care providers. Many communication textbooks or manuals for care giving professions primarily focus on specific communication skills and techniques. Cultivating Empathy takes a different approach; the book sets empathy as the foundation of all therapeutic interactions and teaches the reader to learn the art of empathy by using constructive approaches and research findings from social sciences and neuroscience. Cultivating Empathy is perfect for any student or practicing health care professional who has felt that there was an absence of rapport when interacting with clients or patients and their families. Real case narratives, dynamic interactive exercises and simulation techniques are also provided in this text to assist helpers to learn how to be more empathetic. Readers will gain awareness about human and emotional aspects of patient care, which will hopefully make a positive contribution to their professional practice.

Book Trauma informed Care for Nursing Education  Fostering a Caring Pedagogy  Resilience   Psychological Safety

Download or read book Trauma informed Care for Nursing Education Fostering a Caring Pedagogy Resilience Psychological Safety written by Kathleen Stephany and published by Bentham Science Publishers. This book was released on 2024-05-03 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trauma-informed care is designed to assist persons who have experienced adversity and focuses on change at the clinical and organizational level. Its goals center around prevention, intervention, and treatments that are evidence-based, encourage resilience, and enhance coping. This textbook is designed to give a comprehensive overview of trauma-informed care to students and faculty involved in nursing care programs. Key features: · Explains the skill sets to assess and care for persons who have experienced trauma. · Emphasizes key principles of trauma-informed care · Includes the use of client-centered, person-centered, and resilience-based tools to deal with trauma · Recommends trauma recovery from a positive psychology and post-traumatic growth perspective · Utilizes a caring pedagogy intended to foster resilience and help offset the secondary traumatic stress and compassion fatigue experienced by student and practicing nurses. · Communicates the value of fostering psychological safety, compassion satisfaction, and joy in work · Includes narrative case studies and learning activities in all chapters to help the reader to actively engage with the subject matter. · Presents self-care strategies to enhance physical and emotional well-being.

Book Rational Suicide in the Elderly

Download or read book Rational Suicide in the Elderly written by Robert E. McCue and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-10-27 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive view of rational suicide in the elderly, a group that has nearly twice the rate of suicide when chronically ill than any other demographic. Its frame of reference does not endorse a single point-of-view about the legitimacy of rational suicide, which is evolving across societies with little guidance for geriatric mental health professionals. Instead, it serves as a resource for both those clinicians who agree that older people may rationally commit suicide and those who believe that this wish may require further assessment and treatment. The first chapters of the book provides an overview of rational suicide in the elderly, examining it through history and across cultures also addressing the special case of baby boomers. This book takes an ethical and philosophical look at whether suicide can truly be rational and whether the nearness of death in late-life adults means that suicide should be considered differently than in younger adults. Clinical criteria for rational suicide in the elderly are proposed in this book for the first time, as well as a guidelines for the psychosocial profile of an older adult who wants to commit rational suicide. Unlike any other book, this text examines the existential, psychological, and psychodynamic perspectives. A chapter on terminal mental illness and a consideration of suicide in that context and proposed interventions even without a diagnosable mental illness also plays a vital role in this book as these are key issues in within the question of suicide among the elderly. This book is the first to consider all preventative measures, including the spiritual as well as the psychotherapeutic, and pharmacologic. A commentary on modern society, aging, and rational suicide that ties all of these elements together, making this the ultimate guide for addressing suicide among the elderly. Rational Suicide in the Elderly is an excellent resource for all medical professionals with potentially suicidal patients, including geriatricians, geriatric and general psychiatrists, geriatric nurses, social workers, and public health officials.

Book Contemporary Perspectives on Rational Suicide

Download or read book Contemporary Perspectives on Rational Suicide written by James L. Werth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text brings together spokespersons from several different disciplines who can present their arguments for or against rational suicide as a viable concept and, consequently, a realistic option. The pros and cons of the discussion format bring the readers to search for their beliefs, and the final decision of acceptance or rejection of the concept is left to each individual reader.

Book Helping the Suicidal Person

Download or read book Helping the Suicidal Person written by Stacey Freedenthal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-13 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Helping the Suicidal Person provides a highly practical toolbox for mental health professionals. The book first covers the need for professionals to examine their own personal experiences and fears around suicide, moves into essential areas of risk assessment, safety planning, and treatment planning, and then provides a rich assortment of tips for reducing the person’s suicidal danger and rebuilding the wish to live. The techniques described in the book can be interspersed into any type of therapy, no matter what the professional’s theoretical orientation is and no matter whether it’s the client’s first, tenth, or one-hundredth session. Clinicians don’t need to read this book in any particular order, or even read all of it. Open the book to any page, and find a useful tip or technique that can be applied immediately.

Book Suicide Intervention Handbook

Download or read book Suicide Intervention Handbook written by Richard Frederick Ramsey and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Suicide Prevention and Intervention

Download or read book Suicide Prevention and Intervention written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2001-12-02 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many, thoughts of suicide are abundant and frequent. There exists a fear of death but an even greater fear of life due to the latter's hardships. Participants of the committee on the Pathophysiology and Prevention of Adult and Adolescent Suicide of the Institute of Medicine's workshop on suicide prevention; however, believe that there is potential for better suicide prevention. Two workshops were convened by the committee: Risk Factors for Suicide, March 14, 2001 and Suicide Prevention and Intervention, May 14, 2001. The two workshops were designed to allow invited presenters to share with the committee and other workshop participants their particular expertise in suicide, and to discuss and examine the existing knowledge base. Participants of the second workshop were selected to represent many areas including: design and analysis of prevention programs, suicide contagion, and firearm availability and suicide. The committee wanted to assess the science base of suicide etiology, evaluate the current status of suicide prevention, and examine current strategies for the study of suicide. Suicide Prevention and Intervention: Summary of a Workshop summarizes the major themes that arose during the workshop. It also includes the workshop agenda and a list of speakers that were present.

Book Suicide  A Global Perspective

Download or read book Suicide A Global Perspective written by Maurizio Pompili and published by Bentham Science Publishers. This book was released on 2012-09-19 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the year 2000, approximately one million people died from suicide: a "global" mortality rate of 16 per 100,000, or one death every 40 seconds. In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. Suicide is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 years (both sexes); these figures do not include suicide attempts up to 20 times more frequent than completed suicide. Suicide worldwide is estimated to represent 1.8% of the total global burden of disease in1998, and 2.4% in countries with market and former socialist economies in 2020. Although traditionally suicide rates have been highest among the male elderly, rates among young people have been increasing to such an extent that they are now the group at highest risk in a third of countries, in both developed and developing countries. Mental disorders (particularly depression and substance abuse) are associated with more than 90% of all cases of suicide; however, suicide results from many complex sociocultural factors and is more likely to occur particularly during periods of socioeconomic, family and individual crisis situations (e.g., loss of a loved one, employment, honour). The economic costs associated with completed and attempted suicide are estimated to be in the billions of dollars. One million lives lost each year are more than those lost from wars and murder annually in the world. It is three times the catastrophic loss of life in the tsunami disaster in Asia in 2005. Every day of the year, the number of suicides is equivalent to the number of lives lost in the attack on the World Trade Center Twin Towers on 9/11 in 2001. Everyone should be aware of the warning signs for suicide: Someone threatening to hurt or kill him/herself, or taking of wanting to hurt or kill him/herself; someone looking for ways to kill him/herself by seeking access to firearms, available pills, or other means; someone talking or writing about death, dying or suicide, when these actions are out of the ordinary for the person. Also, high risk of suicide is generally associated with hopelessness; rage, uncontrolled anger, seeking revenge; acting reckless or engaging in risky activities, seemingly without thinking; feeling trapped – like there’s no way out; increased alcohol or drug use; withdrawing from friends, family and society, anxiety, agitation, unable to sleep or sleeping all the time; dramatic mood changes; no reason for living; no sense of purpose in life. Table 1: Understanding and helping the suicidal individual should be a task for all. Suicide Myths How to Help the Suicidal Person Warning Sights of Suicide Myth: Suicidal people just want to die. Fact: Most of the time, suicidal people are torn between wanting to die and wanting to live. Most suicidal individuals don’t want death; they just want to stoop the great psychological or emotional pain they are experiencing -Listen; -Accept the person’s feelings as they are; -Do not be afraid to talk about suicide directly -Ask them if they developed a plan of suicide; -Expressing suicidal feelings or bringing up the topic of suicide; -Giving away prized possessions settling affairs, making out a will; -Signs of depression: loss of pleasure, sad mood, alterations in sleeping/eating patterns, feelings of hopelessness; Myth: People who commit suicide do not warn others. Fact: Eight out of every 10 people who kill themselves give definite clues to their intentions. They leave numerous clues and warnings to others, although clues may be non-verbal of difficult to detect. -Remove lethal means for suicide from person’s home -Remind the person that depressed feelings do change with time; -Point out when death is chosen, it is irreversible; -Change of behavior (poor work or school performance) -Risk-taking behaviors -Increased use of alcohol or drugs -Social isolation -Developing a specific plan for suicide Myth: People who talk about suicide are only trying to get attention. They won’t really do it. Fact: Few commit suicide without first letting someone know how they feel. Those who are considering suicide give clues and warnings as a cry for help. Over 70% who do threaten to commit suicide either make an attempt or complete the act. -Express your concern for the person; -Develop a plan for help with the person; -Seek outside emergency intervention at a hospital, mental health clinic or call a suicide prevention center Myth: Don’t mention suicide to someone who’s showing signs of depression. It will plant the idea in their minds and they will act on it. Fact: Many depressed people have already considered suicide as an option. Discussing it openly helps the suicidal person sort through the problems and generally provides a sense of relief and understanding. Suicide is preventable. Most suicidal individuals desperately want to live; they are just unable to see alternatives to their problems. Most suicidal individuals give definite warnings of their suicidal intentions, but others are either unaware of the significance of these warnings or do not know how to respond to them. Talking about suicide does not cause someone to be suicidal; on the contrary the individual feel relief and has the opportunity to experience an empathic contact. Suicide profoundly affects individuals, families, workplaces, neighbourhoods and societies. The economic costs associated with suicide and self-inflicted injuries are estimated to be in the billions of dollars. Surviving family members not only suffer the trauma of losing a loved one to suicide, and may themselves be at higher risk for suicide and emotional problems. Mental pain is the basic ingredient of suicide. Edwin Shneidman calls such pain “psychache” [1], meaning an ache in the psyche. Shneidman suggested that the key questions to ask a suicidal person are ‘Where do you hurt?’ and ‘How may I help you?’. If the function of suicide is to put a stop to an unbearable flow of painful consciousness, then it follows that the clinician’s main task is to mollify that pain. Shneidman (1) also pointed out that the main sources of psychological pain, such as shame, guilt, rage, loneliness, hopelessness and so forth, stem from frustrated or thwarted psychological needs. These psychological needs include the need for achievement, for affiliation, for autonomy, for counteraction, for exhibition, for nurturance, for order and for understanding. Shneidman [2], who is considered the father of suicidology, has proposed the following definition of suicide: ‘Currently in the Western world, suicide is a conscious act of self-induced annihilation, best understood as a multidimensional malaise in a needful individual who defines an issue for which the suicide is perceived as the best solution’. Shneidman has also suggested that ‘that suicide is best understood not so much as a movement toward death as it is a movement away from something and that something is always the same: intolerable emotion, unendurable pain, or unacceptable anguish. Strategies involving restriction of access to common methods of suicide have proved to be effective in reducing suicide rates; however, there is a need to adopt multi-sectoral approaches involving other levels of intervention and activities, such as crisis centers. There is compelling evidence indicating that adequate prevention and treatment of depression, alcohol and substance abuse can reduce suicide rates. School-based interventions involving crisis management, self-esteem enhancement and the development of coping skills and healthy decision making have been demonstrated to reduce the risk of suicide among the youth. Worldwide, the prevention of suicide has not been adequately addressed due to basically a lack of awareness of suicide as a major problem and the taboo in many societies to discuss openly about it. In fact, only a few countries have included prevention of suicide among their priorities. Reliability of suicide certification and reporting is an issue in great need of improvement. It is clear that suicide prevention requires intervention also from outside the health sector and calls for an innovative, comprehensive multi-sectoral approach, including both health and non-health sectors, e.g., education, labour, police, justice, religion, law, politics, the media.

Book Suicide

    Book Details:
  • Author : Corrine Loing Hatton
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1977
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 244 pages

Download or read book Suicide written by Corrine Loing Hatton and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Suicide Assessment and Treatment Planning

Download or read book Suicide Assessment and Treatment Planning written by John Sommers-Flanagan and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Writing a book about suicide may not have been our best idea ever. Rita made the point more than once that reading and writing about suicide at the depth necessary to write a helpful book can affect one's mood in a downward direction. She was right, of course. Her rightness inspired us to pay attention to the other side of the coin, so we decided to integrate positive psychology and the happiness literature into this book. As is often the case when grappling with matters of humanity, focusing on suicide led us to a deeper understanding of suicide's complementary dialectic-a meaningful and fully-lived life--and that has been a very good thing. Before diving into these pages, please consider the following. Do the Self-Care Thing In the first chapter, we strongly emphasize how important it is to practice self-care when working with clients who are suicidal. Immersing ourselves in the suicide literature required a balancing focus on positive psychology and wellness. While you're reading this book and exploring suicide, you cannot help but be emotionally impacted, and we cannot overstate the importance of you taking care of yourself throughout this process and into the future. You are the instrument through which you provide care for others . . . and so we highly encourage you to repeatedly do the self-care thing. What is the Strengths-Based Approach? Many people have asked, "What on earth do you mean by a strengths-based approach to suicide assessment and treatment planning?" In response, we usually meander in and out of various bullet points, relational dynamics, assessment procedures, and try to emphasize that the approach is more than just strength-based, it's also wellness-oriented and holistic. By strength-based, we mean that we recognize and nurture the existing and potential strengths of our clients. By wellness-oriented we mean that we believe in incorporating wellness activities into counseling and life. By holistic we mean that we focus on emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, physical, cultural-spiritual, behavioral, and contextual dimensions of living. You will find the following strengths-based, wellness-oriented, and holistic principles woven into every chapter of this book. 1.Historically, suicide ideation has been socially constructed as sinful, illegal, or a terribly frightening and bad illness. In contrast, we believe suicide ideation is a normal variation on human experience that typically stems from difficult environmental circumstances and excruciating emotional pain. Rather than fear client disclosures of suicidality, we welcome these disclosures because they offer an opportunity to connect deeply with distressed clients and provide therapeutic support. 2. Although we believe risk factors, warning signs, protective factors, and suicide assessment instruments are important, we value relationship connections with clients over predictive formulae and technical procedures. 3. We believe trust, empathy, collaboration, and rapport will improve the reliability, validity, and utility of data gathered during assessments. Consequently, we embrace the principles of therapeutic assessment. 4. We believe that counseling practitioners need to ask directly about and explore suicide ideation using a normalizing frame or other sophisticated and empathic interviewing strategies. 5. We believe traditional approaches to suicide assessment and treatment are excessively oriented toward psychopathology. To compensate for this pathology-orientation, we explicitly value and ask about clients' positive experiences, personal strengths, and coping strategies. 6. We believe the narrow pursuit of psychopathology causes clinicians to neglect a more complete assessment and case formulation of the whole person. To compensate, we use a holistic, seven-dimensional model to create a broader understanding of what's hurting and what's helping in each individual client's life. 7. We value the positive emphasis of safety planning and coping skills development over the negative components of no-suicide contracts and efforts to eliminate suicidal thoughts. The Book's Organizing Themes This book includes 10 chapters are organized to build on one another and in ways that are consistent with our understanding of the research literature in suicide theory, research, and practice. We begin the seven dimensions with the emotional dimension, because, as Edwin Shneidman wrote, psychological or emotional distress is the primary driving force at the heart of suicide. In our model, all risk factors and life dimensions contribute in some way or another to deep and excruciating emotional distress and deep and excruciating emotional distress pushes people toward suicide"--

Book Understanding and Counseling the Suicidal Person

Download or read book Understanding and Counseling the Suicidal Person written by Paul W. Pretzel and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements

Download or read book Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements written by American Nurses Association and published by Nursesbooks.org. This book was released on 2001 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pamphlet is a succinct statement of the ethical obligations and duties of individuals who enter the nursing profession, the profession's nonnegotiable ethical standard, and an expression of nursing's own understanding of its commitment to society. Provides a framework for nurses to use in ethical analysis and decision-making.

Book Euthanasia  Searching for the Full Story

Download or read book Euthanasia Searching for the Full Story written by Timothy Devos and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-03-17 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book has been written by ten Belgian health care professionals, nurses, university professors and doctors specializing in palliative care and ethicists who, together, raise questions concerning the practice of euthanasia. They share their experiences and reflections born out of their confrontation with requests for euthanasia and end-of-life support in a country where euthanasia has been decriminalized since 2002 and is now becoming a trivial topic.Far from evoking any militancy, these stories of life and death present the other side of a reality needs to be evaluated more rigorously.Featuring multidisciplinary perspectives, this though-provoking and original book is intended not only for caregivers but also for anyone who questions the meaning of death and suffering, as well as the impact of a law passed in 2002. Presenting real-world cases and experiences, it highlights the complexity of situations and the consequences of the euthanasia law.This book appeals to palliative care providers, hematologists, oncologists, psychiatrists, nurses and health professionals as well as researchers, academics, policy-makers, and social scientists working in health care. It is also a unique resource for those in countries where the decriminalization of euthanasia is being considered. Sometimes shocking, it focuses on facts and lived experiences to challenge readers and offer insights into euthanasia in Belgium.

Book Psychological Assessment and Interventions for Individuals Linked to Radicalization and Lone Wolf Terrorism

Download or read book Psychological Assessment and Interventions for Individuals Linked to Radicalization and Lone Wolf Terrorism written by Carlo Lazzari and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-02 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent times, the phenomenon of lone wolf terrorism has been observed with the social assumption that a radicalized individual is only guided by personal, social, and ethnic reasons to commit an extremist act. Nevertheless, there is still much to understand about this phenomenon and improve the methods of investigation or psychiatric interventions. This handbook attempts to cover gaps in understanding the psychiatric aspects of radicalization and the phenomenon of lone-wolf terrorism. Edited by expert clinical psychologists, the contributors have taken both a qualitative and theoretical route to analyze the phenomenon, prompted by their clinical experience with mental health professionals, being in contact with radicalized people living in local towns and prisons.

Book Substance and Nonsubstance Related Addiction Disorder  Diagnosis and Treatment

Download or read book Substance and Nonsubstance Related Addiction Disorder Diagnosis and Treatment written by Subhash C. Bhatia and published by Bentham Science Publishers. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Substance and Non substance Related Addiction Disorders: Diagnosis and Treatment is an accessible handbook about the two main types of addiction disorders. It is divided into three sections which cover 1) the scientific underpinnings of addiction disorders (neurobiology, addiction neural reward pathways, genetic and psychosocial basis of addiction, screening and treatment), 2) information about substances commonly used by addicts (pharmacology, diagnostics and treatment considerations) and 3) current understandings of the diagnosis and treatment of behavioral problems (such as gambling), respectively. Key features: -covers both substance abuse and behavioral problems -uses a reader friendly format with a patient education handout style -includes key learning points listed in each chapter -includes clinical vignettes which outline brief history, evaluation, diagnostic considerations with successful pharmacological, psychological and social interventions -includes references in each chapter The handbook meets the information needs of medical students and professionals (family physicians, nurses, addiction therapists, psychiatry residents, and other health care professionals) interested in the primary care of patients afflicted with addiction disorders.