Case manager as therapy extender for cognitive behavior therapy of serious mental illness: a case report.

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based intervention for individuals with serious mental illness and potentiates standard medication management. Americans receiving publicly funded treatment for serious mental illnesses have limited access to CBT and hence we need to devise innovative ways of providing access to this important intervention. We present a case of a man who had severe disability, was medication resistant, and diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. After being home bound for many years he was provided CBT utilizing his existing case manager as a therapy extender. The specific roles of the primary therapist and case manager as well as the improvement in quality of life of the individual are delineated. This case report opens up the possibility of further studying case managers as therapy extenders for treating serious mental illnesses.

Building human capital to increase earning power among people living with mental illnesses.

OBJECTIVE: Human Capital Theory, a well-established model from the field of economics, maintains that a person's lifetime earnings are affected by the amount of education and job training they receive. This study uses Human Capital Theory to predict wages and explain employment outcomes among individuals living with psychiatric illnesses. METHODS: Hourly wages were examined between 100 individuals with mental illnesses and 100 matched comparisons who had no mental illnesses. RESULTS: The study found that participants with mental illnesses earned $12.19 an hour vs. $14.54 an hour earned by their counterparts without disability. The study also revealed that higher educational attainment and longer work history predicted higher wages among participants with mental illnesses. The severity of psychiatric symptoms and diagnosis, however, did not predict wages. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: These findings indicate that human capital variables are correlated with wages earned by persons living with mental illnesses. Findings also suggest that assisting mental health consumers in the pursuit of education and job training may increase earning potential which can lead to financial independence and community integration. This supports the value in developing and implementing Supported Education to assist consumers in acquiring education and job training.

Consumer-operated self centers: environment, empowerment, and satisfaction.

Consumer-operated self-help centers were designed to provide social environments that promote participant empowerment and satisfaction. This exploratory, descriptive study examined how variance in empowerment and satisfaction scores could be explained by participants' perceptions of the social environment factors (relationship, personal growth, and systems maintenance and change) and quantity of participation. Participants (N = 144) involved in consumer-operated self-help centers completed a four-part, 161-item survey designed to capture perceptions of satisfaction, empowerment, social environment factors, quantity of center participation, and demographic data. Significant relationships were found between participant satisfaction and the three social environment factors. Findings also indicated that participant empowerment was related to quantity of self-help center involvement. From these exploratory analyses, recommendations are made on how to improve consumer-run self-help center operations.

Measuring practitioners' beliefs, goals, and practices in psychiatric rehabilitation.

This article reports on a scale to measure the psychiatric rehabilitation beliefs, goals, and practices of staff who provide services to consumers. The scale's reliability, validity, and factor structure are presented based upon 469 staff members and 191 people in rehabilitation. The scale appears to be a stable measure of staff members' knowledge of modern psychiatric rehabilitation beliefs, goals, and practices as elaborated by the field's leadership. It also appears to provide a valid measure of staff members' actual practice patterns as they relate to the consumer outcomes of empowerment, quality of life, independent living, and competitive employment. Consumers, program administrators, educators, researchers, and practitioners may find the scale useful as a measure of some of the beliefs, goals, and practices that currently define modern psychiatric rehabilitation.