Thinking About Prescribing: The Psychology of Psychopharmacology With Diverse Youth and Families

Our remedies are only as good as the way in which we dispense them

That's
the central premise of Thinking About Prescribing, a new volume that encourages
pharmacotherapists to view the prescribing of a psychiatric medication to young
patients not simply as part of a clinical visit, but rather as the beginning of
an ongoing alliance with youth and their parents or legal guardians.

The
book makes the case for a partnership that doesn't lean on psychiatric jargon or
an encyclopedic list of side effects, but instead on measured candor,
vulnerability, and-most importantly-time.

Thinking About Prescribing
leverages the knowledge of more than two dozen experts as it tackles topics that
include: The essential features of the Common Factors approach and the Y-model
of psychotherapy, which highlights how relational aspects of pharmacotherapy are
key to child & adolescent psychiatric practice, even for brief visits How
best to utilize the 30-minute Brief Pharmacotherapy Visit (BPV), so that the
alliance is nurtured and time is most efficiently utilized Techniques, adapted
from evidence-based psychotherapies, to enhance medication adherence in diverse
youth populations Approaches to adapt psychoeducation for culturally diverse
populations, and consider why many youth & families may be skeptical of
pharmacotherapeutic interventions Strategies to cultivate a pharmacotherapeutic
alliance when engaging with patients and families via telehealth, including in
the school setting Tips for pediatricians, advanced-practice clinicians, and
other primary care providers who conduct pharmacotherapy

The chapters
feature key takeaways that distill the most salient points and that aid in
knowledge retention.

Rather than raise unrealistic expectations (two
chapters acknowledge the reality of practicing when time and resources are
scarce), the goal of this book is to help pharmacotherapists mitigate the
stigma, apprehension, or resignation their patients may have and instead build
and maintain a trusting relationship that will be key to successful therapeutic
outcomes.