Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach

This breakthrough book offers professors and students a more authentic, personal, and thoroughly scientific picture of what psychological disorders are and how they can be assessed and managed. Unlike the piecemeal ''single-cause, single treatment'' model offered in other abnormal psychology texts, Barlow and Durand demonstrate that disorders are determined by multiple forces: biological, psychological, social, cultural, familial, and political forces, the only approach that today's scientists would subscribe to. Writing in narrative, forceful prose, the authors challenge readers to think about how and why people become troubled and what is done to help them. Throughout the book, Barlow and Durand masterfully integrate concepts with case examples and citations from the literature to demonstrate the connection between research and practice. And, because in contemporary thinking therapy cannot be viewed separately from the disorder, the latest and most effective treatments (both drug and psychosocial) are discussed within the context of the disorder.