ABSTRACT
This book describes an approach to understanding psychotic experiences, along with associated methods to help relieve suffering and improve quality of life for people with psychosis from a psychological perspective. The particular psychological orientation described and advocated is a cognitive one. This approach utilises a generic cognitive model of emotional disorders, as well as more specific cognitive models of psychotic experience. These approaches have been offered to people with experiences of psychosis who met DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder or delusional disorder (APA, 1994), as an adjunct to treatment as usual within an adult mental health service in Salford and Trafford. The purpose of this chapter is to consider the implementation of such approaches within standard mental health services for people with psychosis, focusing particularly on the culture of adult mental health services within the UK, and the procedures, practices and, perhaps, philosophical changes, that may be necessary in order to routinely offer such psychological perspectives and treatment paradigms.
