The Handbook of Adult Clinical Psychology

The second edition of the Handbook of Adult Clinical Psychology: An Evidence Based Practice Approach, like its predecessor, provides clinical psychologists in training with a comprehensive practice handbook to help build the skills necessary to complete a clinical placement in the field of adult mental health. While practical in orientation, the book is based solidly on empirical evidence.

Building on the success of the previous edition, this handbook has been extensively revised in a number of ways. Throughout the book, the text, references, and website addresses have been updated to reflect important developments since the publication of the first edition. Recent research findings on the epidemiology, aetiology, course, outcome, assessment, and treatment of all psychological problems considered in this volume have been incorporated into the text. Account has been taken of changes in the diagnosis and classification of psychological problems reflected in the DSM-5. Chapters on ADHD in adults, emotion-focused therapy, radically open dialectical behaviour therapy, and schema therapy have been added.

The book is divided into 6 sections:

Section 1 covers conceptual frameworks for practice (lifespan development; classification and epidemiology; CBT, psychodynamic, emotion-focused, systemic and bio-medical models; and general assessment procedures).

Section 2 deals with mood problems (depression, bipolar disorder, suicide risk, and anger management).

Section 3 focuses on anxiety problems (social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depersonalization disorder).

Section 4 deals with psychological problems linked to physical health (health anxiety, somatization, chronic pain, adjustment to cancer, and eating disorders).

Section 5 focuses on other significant psychological problems that come to the attention of clinical psychologists in adult mental health services (ADHD in adults, alcohol and other drug problems, psychosis, and psychological problems in older adults).

Section 6 contains chapters on therapeutic approaches to psychological distress related to complex childhood trauma (dialectical behaviour therapy for borderline personality disorder, racially open dialectical behaviour for over-controlled presentations, and schema therapy).

Each of the chapters on clinical problems explains how to assess and treat the condition in an evidence-based way with reference to case material. Interventions from cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic, interpersonal/systemic, and biomedical approaches are described, where there is evidence that they are effective for the problem in question. Skill-building exercises and further reading for psychologists and patients are included at the end of each chapter.

This book is one of a set of three volumes which cover the lion’s share of the curriculum for clinical psychologists in training in the UK and Ireland. The other two volumes are the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology, Third Edition (by Alan Carr) and the Handbook of Intellectual Disability and Clinical Psychology Practice, Second Edition edited by Alan Carr, Christine Linehan, Gary O’Reilly, Patricia Noonan Walsh, and John McEvoy.