Personal recovery has three main dimensions: hope, agency and opportunity. The opportunity links it with social inclusion and thus peoples' participation in a wider society. Schizophrenia as a complex mental health disorder is ranked among the leading causes of disability worldwide. It influences all major areas of life: emotional and cognitive…

Schizophrenia as mental illness is defined in terms of diagnostic criteria which do not include the full range of psychosocial difficulties that shape the lived experience of persons with this diagnosis and affect their quality of life. The biopsychosocial approach found in the World Health Organization's International Classification of…

A total of 155 nonlabeled, normal adults and 28 labeled, schizophrenic adults were interviewed in a study to determine differences in the two groups' perceptions of television utility and reality. Hypotheses were formulated concerning expected differences in the reported importance of television in interpersonal communication, relaxation, and…

Some researchers have attempted to connect suicide to a general history of mental illness; others have searched for diagnosis-free suicide risk factors; and still others have argued that different risk profiles may emerge for different diagnoses. In addition to these issues, it appears that suicide completers and suicide attempters show somewhat…

The decade of the 1980s has witnessed a rebirth of concern regarding the chronically mentally ill. The way mental health professionals view families of the chronically mentally ill has changed dramatically, largely because of the emergence of the biological theories of causation for schizophrenia. Innovative programs for families have included…

Increasing evidence that decompensation into acute psychosis by schizophrenics can often be avoided with active pharmacological and psychosocial intervention at the early signs of relapse has stimulated research into the signs and symptoms prodromal to acute psychosis. In this study, 6-week periods prior to 17 psychotic relapses and to 11 relapses…

This presentation outlines the implications of psychiatric disability recovery for mental health systems and programs. Schizophrenia and other serious psychiatric disabilities have been viewed as irreversible illnesses with increasing disability over time. Mental health program planning, policies, and practices have been developed and implemented…

The relationship between schizophrenia and mental retardation is examined. Historical associations between symptoms of the two disorders are reviewed, and a 3-year study of the incidence (14%) of mental illness in 798 retarded individuals in a community based program is described. Information on the etiological, developmental, and phenomenological…

Although the occurrence of medical illnesses in psychiatric patients is quite high, medical illnesses manifested by psychiatric symptoms are often overlooked. The higher mortality rates among psychiatric patients when compared to the general population may be a reflection of neglect or inadequate treatment of the psychiatric patients' medical…

Recent research suggests that family attitudes may be significant determinants of relapse and hospital readmission among both schizophrenics and hospitalized depressives. To assess the incremental effectiveness of inpatient family intervention within the context of treatment for schizophrenic disorder and major affective disorder patients, a…

College students (N=396), chronic pain patients (N=319), and schizophrenic veterans (N=43) completed the Depression Coping Questionnaire (DCQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Factor analysis of the DCQ identified eleven coping responses: social support, problem solving, self-blame/escape, aggression, indulgence, activities, medication,…

The high incidence of reported posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Vietnam veterans has prompted researchers to search for reliable assessment and treatment procedures for this disorder. Although some encouraging preliminary data on the use of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) have been obtained, it is uncertain if this…

A 17-year-old boy presented for treatment with chronic diarrhea that had proven refractory to medical treatment for a period of five years. The problem was sufficiently debilitating to cause highly erratic school attendance. Anamnesis revealed no precipitating event, though it was discovered that the patient's mother was a moderately compensated,…

Two studies were conducted to find correlates of personality or cognitive style that were exemplified in differences in recall of semantic information from text. In both studies the texts were analyzed for the pattern of subordination, or hierarchy, of the semantic information that was contained in the passages using a method described by Meyer.…

While neuropsychology relates the neural structures damaged in traumatic brain injury with their cognitive functions in daily life, this report reviews evidence that elementary operations of cognition as defined by cognitive studies are the level at which the brain localizes its computations. Orienting of visual attention is used as a model task.…