The Collaborative Psychotherapist: Creating Reciprocal Relationships With Medical Professionals

Ruddy (Hunterdon Family Practice Residency, New Jersey), Borreson (family medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswich, New Jersey), and Gunn (New Hampshire/Dartmouth Family Practice Residency, Concord) offer practicing psychotherapists step-by-step guidance on how they can work with their medical colleagues on a routine basis. Coverage includes an overview of the barriers to, advantages of, and disadvantages of such collaboration; the skills and practices psychotherapists need to become more collaborative; psychotherapeutic and collaborative strategies for using intensive collaboration with challenging patients; and clinical examples of collaboration with adult and child patients and interviews with collaborative health care professionals which demonstrate how collaborative care can alter the treatment process, outcomes, and patient and professional satisfaction. A number of reproducible forms are included in the appendices. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)