Incorporating Acceptance and Mindfulness into the Treatment of Psychosis ─ Current Trends and Future Directions

There have been exciting new developments in the treatment of schizophrenia and related psychoses in recent decades. Clinical guidelines increasingly recommend that patients be offered evidence-based psychosocial treatments in addition to medications, as such interventions can produce greater improvements and may prevent relapses better compared with medications alone. In parallel with these recent advancements, an evolution in the way cognitive-behavioral therapies are being conceptualized and implemented has occurred due to the incorporation of novel strategies that promote psychological processes such as acceptance and mindfulness. While there are a variety of acceptance/mindfulness approaches being developed to address psychosis, there is not currently a dominant approach.

In Incorporating Acceptance and Mindfulness into the Treatment of Psychosis, Brandon Gaudiano brings together the researchers and clinicians working at the cutting edge of acceptance/mindfulness therapies for psychosis to compare and contrast emerging approaches and discuss them within the context of the more traditional cognitive-behavioral interventions. The book includes a section that focuses on six distinct treatment models that incorporate acceptance and mindfulness strategies for psychosis and a section that provides a synthesis and analysis of acceptance/mindfulness approaches to psychosis. It concludes with recommendations for moving the research forward in a constructive and responsible way. This volume will be an important resource for researchers and clinicians interested in gaining a deeper understanding of mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches and newer psychosocial treatments for severe mental illness.

Brandon A. Gaudiano, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in the Psychosocial Research Program at Butler Hospital and also is Assistant Professor (research) in the Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Dr. Gaudiano has published over 65 peer-reviewed, scientific articles as well as 50 other publications on various topics including psychotherapy development and testing, evidence-based practices, psychotic and mood disorders, and mindfulness/acceptance. His research on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and other novel psychosocial interventions for psychosis has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.