This book serves as a clinical guide to assist clinicians in prescribing psychotropic medications to address mental health conditions. It is used to assist clinicians to understand the key aspects of psychopharmacology. This is the first practical guide for novice and experienced nurse practitioners for explaining and choosing appropriate psychiatric medications. This clinical reference is ideal for students and all clinically oriented healthcare professionals since it provides concise, bulleted-style text for easy access to pertinent information. The book offers readers a broad understanding of the key aspects of psychotropic medications used in general psychiatry and primary-care settings and includes strategies to ease medication decision-making and evidence-based best practices to select and manage psychotropic medications. It is organized into two parts. Part I begins with an overview of general pharmacological principles and a brief overview of neurotransmitters, and covers the rationale for medication use and the risks and benefits of the major classes of psychotropic medications. Part II includes medications across drug classes that are divided by age population and includes practice management strategies, safety considerations, drug interactions, identification of side effects and adverse reactions, basic laboratory test recommendations, treatment options, and self-management strategies. The book ends with important concepts for patient and/or caregiver education and advocacy. It is intended for clinical healthcare providers, including physicians, nurses, APRNs, and other healthcare clinicians who need a practice guide, test review, or clinical resource guide that is easy to access and use.

As humans navigate the different ages of life, they pass through different stages of development. Mental health professionals rely on various theories, treatment modalities, and ongoing research to inform their best practice; this book supports the reader to do so in a culturally responsive, humble, self-reflective way, in order that the clients will be ethically and effectively served across the lifespan. It is organized in a way that makes it interesting, entertaining, and relevant. The book is organized in two parts. Part one uses three chapters to provide an overview of lifespan development, theories of human and lifespan development, and theories of intersectionality and identity development. These chapters provide the foundation from which to explore relevant developmental concepts as they apply to people at various ages and stages of development. Part two cover different ages and stages of development. It presents each age and stage in a two-chapter sequence. The first chapter in each sequence will introduce a case study of a client belonging to a particular age group. The second chapter in each age and stage will anchor specific theories, models, and presents clinical interventions to working with the identified case. New and relevant research will be included to further contextualize the application of the theory. The book inspires the lifelong learners as scientist-practitioners, with ongoing openness to revising what one “know”, even as one become more clear about what appears to be self-evident.

This book is a much-needed update that offers an in-depth and comprehensive exploration of the variety of relevant issues concerning clients’ traumatic, crisis-related, and disaster events that commonly are encountered by professional counselors and other mental health professionals. The textbook is framed, theoretically, within a systemic paradigm, including important recent physiological and neurobiological understandings of the impact of trauma on individuals. The book is organized into six sections. Section I offers a foundation for understanding the various trauma-associated issues. In fact, it tries, with a great deal of intentionality, in the first three chapters, to construct a trauma scaffold of foundational knowledge, upon which students can build increasingly more complex conceptualizations of more nuanced clinical issues associated with trauma. Section II explicates relevant constructs, such as loss and grief; these constructs continue to build upon and expand the trauma scaffolding of the first section. It also offers information about the traumatic events that may be experienced by specific age groups, people who are vulnerable, and other particular populations. Section III begins with his explication of the moral psychology of evil. Section IV presents a broader systemic context for understanding the effects of trauma on groups of people. Section V analyzes assessment methods and interventions associated with psychological trauma. It identifies and discusses the larger scope of integrative approaches to trauma, crisis, and disaster intervention, thus emphasizing the importance of more systemic models. Section VI begins by presenting ethical perspectives on trauma work. It explicates vicarious traumatization, highlighting the need for counselor selfawareness. It also focuses on the importance of mindfulness-based self-care for counselors, encouraging clinicians to be healing counselors rather than wounded healers.