Positive Psychiatry

A wonderful shift in psychiatry and mental health care is upon us. In addition to addressing the suffering that psychiatric illness inflicts on our patients, we can also embrace strategies to help others pursue mental health and well-being, an arena not often addressed in psychiatric care. Discovery of the roots of resilience, the benefits of gratitude, and ways to engage PERMA: positive emotion, engagement, good relationships, meaning, and accomplishment, are some of the offerings available in this book. Rooted in positive psychology but transformed in this well-written tome, this new approach to healing is timely and welcome. We stand to have our field, in addition to our individual patients and ourselves, flourish. Maria A. Oquendo, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Vice-Chair for Education, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University This book gives mental health professionals an impetus to rethink the principles of psychiatry. Modern psychiatry has focused on diagnostics and therapeutics rather than on prevention of mental illnesses. The mission of medicine is not only to treat diseases but also to provide patients with wisdom to positively live through their destiny. This book will have a great impact not just on psychiatric but also on overall medical education, leading toward a new medical model. Shigeto Yamawaki, M.D., Ph.D., CINP President Just as the absence of disease does not imply good physical health, the absence of distress does not imply good mental health. This volume seeks to redefine modern psychiatry as a discipline that not only treats illness but promotes well-being. The contributions of the distinguished group of scientists Jeste and Palmer have assembled will broaden and improve the field. Laura L. Carstensen, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, and the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy Director, Stanford Center on Longevity

This book is designed to bring positive mental health ideas and interventions into mainstream psychiatric research, training, and clinical practice. The book successfully brings the unique skill sets and methods of psychiatry to the larger positive health movement.

Long overdue, Positive Psychiatry provides a rigorous and clinically useful guide to the growing body of research that strongly suggests that positive psychosocial factors such as resilience, optimism, and social engagement are associated with better outcomes, including lower morbidity, greater longevity, and a heightened sense of patient well-being. Because most of the research has been conducted outside of the field of psychiatry, it has had relatively little influence on everyday clinical practice. This volume, written and edited by luminaries in the field, hopes to remedy this situation by introducing clinicians to the guiding principles of positive psychiatry, which hold that mental health cannot be defined as the mere reduction or even elimination of mental illness, and that mental health professionals must focus on more than simply controlling the symptoms of illness.

To that end, the book, while biologically grounded and exhaustively referenced, is also structured and written to be accessible. It includes many useful features:

• Bulleted outlines of key clinical points are included where appropriate, fostering direct application of positive psychiatry constructs, measures, interventions, and outcomes into clinical practice and training.
• An abundance of interesting and compelling clinical vignettes illustrate how to incorporate positive psychiatry techniques and treatment strategies into practice.
• Comprehensive coverage makes this volume the "go-to" resource for researchers and clinicians seeking an overview and details of what positive psychiatry is, why it is needed, and how to integrate it into research, practice, and training.
• The roster of contributors is a "who's who" in the field of positive mental health, rendering this the definitive source of information on positive psychiatry.

Chief among the book's strengths is its emphasis on empirically grounded applications, and the editors have ensured that limitations in the available evidence base are identified, as well as directions for further research. Positive Psychiatry fills a critical gap in the treatment literature, and researchers, clinicians, and trainees in psychiatry and allied mental health fields will welcome its publication.