Philip J. Barker – författare

This topical book examines some of the key ethical issues that professionals face when caring for people with mental health problems. Written by a range of professionals, the book discusses the practical ethical dilemmas experienced by doctors, nurses, psychologists and social workers in providing quality care. Emphasis is given to examining ethical issues which have attracted most concern over the past decade, such as the relative autonomy of people with mental health problems and the influence of different therapeutic ideologies. The book attempts to establish some guidelines for "good practice" in mental health and should be attractive to all students and professionals working in the field. This book should be of interest to health professionals working with the mentally ill and mentally handicapped.

Depression, in varying degrees, affects the majority of people at some point in their lives. The sufferer feels exhausted, isolated, profoundly sad and very unwell. Sleep is both a stranger and an enemy when accompanied by nightmares; food has no taste; tears exhaust, and the body and mind withdraw from life. The worse thing is the sense of being out of control of the day-to-day elements of living. Other people make the decisions. Philip Barker has stood beside many people in this dark place and realized that part of the resolution of profound sorrow lies with the sufferers regaining, and sometimes learning for the first time, to take control of their lives and to provide the gifts of kindness and power for themselves. This companion guide, which also forms part of Philip's book Severe Depression, published by Chapman & Hall in 1992, provides a way of taking control again. The book should be read slowly, step by step. The next step should be taken when the last has been mastered. This is not easy when too depressed to concentrate, but a page at a time is manageable. The reward is likely to be that of being in control again and being able to enjoy some of life's pleasures.This book should be of interest to psychiatric nurses; health professionals working with sufferers of severe depression; and sufferers of severe depression.

This book, originally published in 1985, is intended to complement Philip Barker’s previous book Behaviour Therapy Nursing. The latter focussed more on the principles of the behavioural approach to nursing, while this book adopts a more practical approach. It is also shown that the proposed model can be extended beyond psychiatric and learning disabilities into general nursing. In the first part of the book the range of settings in which various therapeutic approaches can be used is set out, including work in the community. Emphasis is also given to the nurse’s role in social skills training and in the development of everyday living skills for the rehabilitation of the mentally ill and disabled. The second part of the book presents case studies, each describing how the nurse assesses the patient and plans and implements the treatment. The emphasis is on practical illustration of the behavioural approach to different clinical problems in different patient populations in various treatment settings. At the end of each study there is discussion of possible alternative treatment strategies and the general applicability of the case.

The behavioural approach in nursing practice is the main concern of this book, originally published in 1982. Although the discussion concentrates on the fields of psychiatry and learning disabilities, it is also relevant to other areas of nursing such as the care of the elderly or of sick children. The book traces the development of behaviour therapy from its beginnings in the experimental laboratory work of Pavlov, Skinner and Watson to the more recent influences of social learning theory. A survey is made of the major stages in the therapy process, and this is followed by a detailed description of possible types of treatment. In conclusion some of the more controversial issues raised in this book are reconsidered, along with their implications.