Mental Disorders, Medications, and Clinical Social Work » (3rd Edition)

Sonia Austrian is the author of Development Theories Through the Life Cycle. She is associate professor in the departments of public health and of psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, adjunct professor at Columbia University School of Social Work, and is director of the Employee Assistance Program Consortium.

Austrian discusses the etiology, epidemiology, assessment, and intervention planning for common mental disorders. Looking at disorders from an ecosystems perspective, Austrian goes beyond a linear classification approach and DSM-IV-TR categories and encourages social workers to analyze the internal and external environmental factors that contribute to a disorder's development. Austrian's discussion of effective intervention(s) for a particular client also stresses the importance of working with families in treating disorders.

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For fellow social workers and students of the profession, Austrian (public health and psychiatry, Cornell U. and social work, Columbia U.) discusses the etiology, epidemiology, assessment, and intervention planning for common mental disorders. Rather than a simple linear classification approach, she uses a broad bio-psychosocial ecosystems perspective, which takes into account each client's unique situation. Without noting the date of the first edition, she here expands the discussion of the effects of managed care, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and interpersonal therapy and includes a new model of short- term intervention. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)