Peter W. Halligan

John C. Marshall

In clinical neuropsychiatry, case studies provide invaluable demonstrations of the range and types of unusual psychological states that can occur after brain damage. In the pursuit of objectivity and scientific respectability, however, many academic reports of neuropsychiatric disorders appear cold, contrived and impersonal. The essence and character of the patient's experience and behaviour is easily obscured or even lost - a fact that cannot help researchers, therapists and other practitioners to relate their conceptual knowledge to the flesh-and-blood people they meet in their professional lives. In practice, much of the actual discourse of such patients has been ignored as unworthy of scientific interest. This book describes real patients in a clear and jargon-free way. These cases should serve to reduce the discrepancy between the formal representations of psychiatric illness in the mainstream literature and the reality of people struggling to make sense of their own predicament in everyday life.

Case Studies In Cognitive Neuropsychiatry

Method In Madness

Derick T. Wade

In this book, some of the leading clinicians and cognitive neuroscientists consider the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation. They situate the issues within an overall context that considers the different types and levels of diagnosis and assessment, the adequacy of underlying cognitive theory for rehabilitation, and more importantly, the clinical effectiveness of current treatments to improve functional recovery. By employing an evidence-based approach that critically evaluates the published literature, the book provides for a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of the cognitive approach and hopefully a more realistic expectation of its outcome for patients with neurological deficits. The book will serve as a valuable source for a wide spectrum of professionals who deal with the neuropsychological and neurological effects of brain damage.

The Effectiveness of Rehabilitation for Cognitive Deficits

Christopher Maurice Bass

David A. Oakley

Despite a rich and turbulent history spanning several centuries, malingering continues to be a controversial and neglected clinical condition that has significant implications for medical, social, legal and insurance interests. Estimates of malingering - the wilful, intentional attempt to simulate or exaggerate illness in the pursuit of a consciously desired end - vary greatly, despite the fact that malingering is believed to contribute substantially to fraudulent health care and social welfare costs. There is little consensus about what would constitute a coherent assessment of malingering, and base rates have been difficult to establish. Malingering remains a difficult attribution to make not least since it falls outside the remit of the formal psychiatric classifications. Labelling a person as a malingerer however, has significant medico-legal, personal and economic ramifications for both subject and accuser. Viewed in this way, malingering is not so much illness behavior in search of a disease, as the manifestation of a conflict between personal and social values. The aim of this book is to effect an integration of the different medical, forensic, neuropsychological, legal and social perspectives. The book provides an overview of progress in disparate fields relevant to the subject, including how recent social and neuroscience findings regarding volition, intentional states and theory of mind may have implications for informing detection, management and ultimately its explanation.

Peter W. Halligan

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