A Balanced Perspective

Depending on their training, most mental-health professionals are either strongly in favor of, or firmly opposed to, the use of psychoactive medications such as Prozac, Ritalin, Valium, and Zoloft. Dr. Catell advocates a balanced perspective, helping the clinician to evaluate the pros and cons of the use of psychoactive medications depending upon the specific symptoms and problems of each client. Practitioners also need to know how their clients are affected by commonly-used non-prescription psychoactive substances --both legal and illegal-- such as alcohol, caffeine, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, marijuana, nicotine, sleep aids, and many others. Drugs and Clients explains how psychoactive substances work, describes how to objectively evaluate their risks and benefits, and explories how their presence, or absence, affects the process of psychotherapy, with a focus on how to recognize when a medication evaluation might be needed.

A Clear, Concise Resource for all Mental-Health Practitioners

In Drugs and Clients, Dr. Catell makes the highly-complex subject of psychopharmacology accessible, not only to psychotherapists, but to all mental-health practitioners who have not been trained in the specialty of psychiatry. It is also an ideal text for psychology and counseling graduate courses in psychopharmacology.