Family Therapy as an Alternative to Medication

This text addresses the issue of the increased reliance on pharmaceuticals as a "quick fix" for treating mental illness. Psychiatric medications have achieved dominance in mental health practices, not because of efficacy, but because of political and marketing practices, and this rush to medicate has largely eclipsed the family systems model of psychotherapy. This book awakens a broader awareness of how invaluable systems-oriented psychotherapy still is, even in the age of medical breakthroughs. It analyses both positive and negative effects of drug therapy and offers several approaches towards integration. It presents treatment illustrations for various disorders, along with potential problems that can arise from trying to combine a medical model with family systems work. The work as a whole is not a monologue on the evils of drug therapy. Rather, the book takes the position that family systems approaches are powerful tools that, when combined with appropriate medication, act synergistically in effecting positive outcomes of treatment.

"Highly experienced practitioners of family therapy...Should be of interest to anyone in the health field." -- Psychiatric Services"Reading this book was a refreshing and stimulating experience.The editors did a remarkable job in bringing together 24 different voices (contributors) to elaborate on and provide multiple and different vistas of the core book's theme.I think that any person who reads this book will broaden his or her level of awareness of contemporary issues defining the diagnosis and treatment modalities offered in the mental health field and in medicine in general.This book is extraordinarily relevant to the current crisis in the mental health field and medicine in general.I highly recommend this book for all mental health therapists and physicians, particularly those working in psychiatry and primary-care settings.It is my sincere hope that others enjoy the "poetic experience" of reading this book in the same way I did.." -- Jose Bayona, MD, MPH, University of Texas--Houston Medical School

Phoebe Prosky, MSW, studied under family therapy pioneer Nathan Ackerman, MD, and worked and taught at the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy for fifteen years. Moving to Maine, she founded a family therapy training center and clinic which incorporates the spirit of Ackerman's work, embodied in an approach which emphasizes the conscious use of intuition and alternatives to the use of medication in the teaching and practice of family therapy.David V. Keith, M.D. holds joint appointments as Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics at the State University of New York, Health Science Center at Syracuse. He is also the Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Director of Family Therapy. Dr. Keith's special interest is in the impact of relationships on health and illness. It is this interest which guides his teaching, academics, and clinical work in family therapy.