The Nurse as Therapist

This book, originally published in 1985, is intended to complement Philip Barker’s previous book Behaviour Therapy Nursing. The latter focussed more on the principles of the behavioural approach to nursing, while this book adopts a more practical approach. It is also shown that the proposed model can be extended beyond psychiatric and learning disabilities into general nursing. In the first part of the book the range of settings in which various therapeutic approaches can be used is set out, including work in the community. Emphasis is also given to the nurse’s role in social skills training and in the development of everyday living skills for the rehabilitation of the mentally ill and disabled. The second part of the book presents case studies, each describing how the nurse assesses the patient and plans and implements the treatment. The emphasis is on practical illustration of the behavioural approach to different clinical problems in different patient populations in various treatment settings. At the end of each study there is discussion of possible alternative treatment strategies and the general applicability of the case.