Practical Psychiatry for the Health Professional

There is now widespread recognition that emotional problems, to say nothing of the interactions of emotions with other manifestations of illness and disease, constitute a substantial component of all human suffering. For too long the pro­ vision of medical care has been restricted to the physical aspects of that suffer­ ing while the psychological aspects have been shunned. Whether through igno­ rance about the nature of emotional illness and its clinical management, or through uncertainty about the legitimacy of their ministrations, physicians and many other health professionals have left the care of psychiatric problems to psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. For a variety of reasons this strategy is no longer feasible and substantial changes are required. The extent of the needs, the nature of the presenting problems, the ex­ pectations of the patients, the prohibitive costs of alternative approaches, and the lack of trained mental health professionals make it imperative that general health workers learn to cope with the psychological and behavioral health prob­ lems of their patients. There are no other alternatives if the realities of comtem­ porary suffering, limited resources and psychobiological knowledge are accepted. It is to the pragmatic knowledge base for this essential component of contemporary health care that this book makes a seminal contribution. Dr.