Current Psychiatry Reviews - Volume 7, Issue 4, 2011

Current psychiatric classifications include provisional categories for acute transient psychoses such as ICD-10 ‘ Acute and transient psychotic disorders’ (ATPD) and DSM-IV-TR ‘ Brief psychotic disorder’ . Following on from an account of earlier concepts such as bouffee delirante, cycloid psychosis and the reactive and schizophreniform psychoses, this paper describes the process whereby they were subsumed under the h Read More

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is well established as one of the most effective and safe treatments in psychiatry, but concerns about adverse cognitive effects remain and provide the impetus for further research to refine ECT technique. Various approaches have been tried to ensure adequate treatments are administered, thereby maximising benefits whilst minimising adverse effects. Past discussions regarding ECT s Read More

Despite the abundant research on impulsivity and that on depression, and despite several lines of clinical and research evidence pointing out the potential associations between the two phenomena, to date the idea that impulsivity is linked to depression is still seriously questioned. This paper will argue that there is a body of research investigating the relationship between impulsivity and depression. It will argue that this body o Read More

The TransTheoretical Model (TTM), Self-Determination Theory (SDT), and the Integral Model of Treatment Motivation (IM) provide distinct but not incompatible conceptualisations of motivation. We discuss the utility of these theories as a basis for the improvement of psychiatric treatment engagement and treatment outcomes in patients with severe mental illness. It appears that all three theories have gained support for th Read More

Background: Treatment integrity is defined as the extent to which a treatment is carried out as intended. It includes several interrelated components (e.g. therapy adherence, therapist competence and therapy differentiation). Treatment integrity is regarded to play an essential role in psychotherapy outcome research. Objective: This article discusses (1) conceptual aspects, (2) empirical results and (3) methodological p Read More

The present article reviews findings from behavioral, structural and functional studies on facial recognition in patients with schizophrenia. Behavioral studies of face processing have indicated schizophrenia-related deficits in the formation and retention of memory for face configuration information. Moreover, evidence suggests that face recognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia and their families are not seconda Read More