• Drug use is common. It is estimated that one in ten people in the UK have tried an illegal psychoactive drug in the last year.

• Young people use more drugs than any other age group, many by their mid-teens.

• Cannabis is the most commonly used illegal psychoactive drug.

• People use psychoactive drugs to change the way they feel.

• Psychoactive drug use can result in new feelings that would otherwise be hard to experience, or take away unwanted feelings. To feel good, or stop feeling bad.

• Sometimes psychoactive drugs are used for social gain, bringing a sense of belonging and identity.

• As we will see in Chapter 11, some people experience mental health problems which increase their risk of using drugs

• The UK has two drug laws, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. These laws place all psychoactive drugs under control and rank some drugs according to their potential to cause harm.

• The UK drug laws make it an offence to produce, supply, import or export and, in some cases, possess a psychoactive drug.

The pursuit of a fulfilling life encompasses happiness, health, and personal growth. Amid the complexities of our global environment, achieving a state of wellbeing becomes critical. Barbara Sahakian’s involvement in the UK Government Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing underscored the significance of mental health in societal advancement. The project emphasized cognitive enhancement and resilience-building as essential components for individual and collective prosperity. Identifying promoters such as exercise, education, and social support, the project highlighted pathways to cognitive health and wellbeing. Conversely, stress and substance abuse were recognized as detriments. Cognition, encompassing both ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ processes, plays a pivotal role in navigating societal demands and interpersonal dynamics. As technology reshapes industries and societies, preserving mental health amid AI advancements is imperative. Early detection and proactive interventions for mental health issues are crucial steps towards holistic wellbeing. Through evidence-based lifestyle strategies encompassing exercise, nutrition, social engagement, and mindfulness, individuals can promote brain health, cognitive resilience, and overall wellbeing, thereby living fuller, happier lives and contributing to a flourishing society.

This book aims at providing the reader with an introduction to psychiatry and to the study of mental disorders. While still addressing basic theoretical concepts of importance for the understanding of psychiatry as a specific field of knowledge, its main focus is not an extensive discussion or a comprehensive review of research findings. Instead, whenever possible, the different topics are addressed from a practical point of view, allowing the reader not only to expand their base knowledge but, most importantly, to obtain a good picture of how patients experiencing these conditions usually present themselves in clinical contexts. Moreover, the treatment of mental disorders is addressed in an objective, straightforward way, based on the respective authors’ own clinical experience in the management of a high number of patients, in different settings.

I trained as a clinical psychologist in the late 1970s, qualifying in 1980, and began practising in the local primary healthcare services in NHS Lanarkshire in Scotland. It was in that context that a general practitioner (GP) asked me one day, likely in 1981, ‘Colin, is there not anything you can do for folks who can’t sleep?’ I had to say that I didn’t know. We hadn’t had much, or even any, training on sleep problems. The GP concerned, along with many other professionals who referred patients, wasn’t satisfied that a pill was the only, or even the best, answer to mental health conditions. I had been seeing people with depression, anxiety, and so on, but could insomnia be addressed using evidence-based psychological therapies? I was curious to find out.

To begin a tour of research on implicit bias, the construct must be defined conceptually and operationally, and Section 1 does just that. As we shall see, the accumulated literature has been characterized by definitional divergences that merit investigation and resolution.

This chapter profiles a description of the paths that shaped research on parental monitoring and adolescents’ information management. As these areas developed, accounts of the interplay between parents’ attempts to regulate their adolescents’ behavior and adolescents’ responses grew in breadth and in detail. In this chapter, we introduce readers to the constructs and frameworks that have come to represent monitoring and information management research, including related topics that have been probed in diverse attempts to better understand parenting and adolescents’ behaviors. We track developments in the field from the initial challenges to research on parental monitoring, to the rapid shift emphasizing adolescents’ information management and challenging assumptions about monitoring specifically and parental control more generally. Finally, we not how these broad examinations of monitoring and parental control have led to theory development and offer suggestions for continuing these efforts.

The nature of prejudice and bigotry have changed in recent decades. In most communities it is unacceptable to be openly racist, sexist, or homophobic. Norms against prejudice have certainly changed. It is true that prejudice directed toward many groups has decreased; however, individual attitudes have not necessarily caught up with changing norms. As a result, some people hide their prejudices, attempting to mask their discrimination in neutral-seeming behavior. Others truly believe they are not prejudiced, even when they are. Social psychologists have spent recent decades measuring and mapping the nature of subtle, covert, and implicit forms of contemporary prejudice. Benign Bigotry critically examines seven contemporary myths and assumptions that reflect prejudice that appears common sense, even harmless, but actually reveal the perniciousness and insidiousness of contemporary prejudice. Benign Bigotry critically analyzes: (1) the assumption that prejudice is an individual-only problem; (2) that people in outgroups are all alike; (3) that those accused of a crime are likely guilty of something; (4) that feminists are manhaters; (5) that LGBTQ+ people flaunt their sexuality; (6) that those who claim racial colorblindness are not racists; and (7) that affirmative action amounts to reverse racism.

Writing about mental illness, treatment and stigma; being a mother, wife and friend as well as doctor and patient.

People reasonably expect their healthcare professionals to avoid causing harm. In the UK, there are various clinical and governance checks and balances to ensure that the individual is safe and treated with appropriate evidence-based care, and safeguards by the state to explore and investigate when these appear to have been breached. These include internal organisational disciplinary proceedings, public complaints processes, ombudsman investigations, civil claims for compensation, and criminal prosecutions, among others. In England and Wales, the coroner’s inquest is one such check and balance.

An introduction and overview of intellectual disability. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) diagnostic criteria for intellectual disability (DSM-5 criteria) are covered: Deficits in general mental abilities; Impairment in adaptive functioning for individual’s age and sociocultural background which may include communication, social skills, person independence, and school or work functioning; All symptoms must have an onset during the developmental period; The condition may be subcategorised according to severity based on adaptive functioning as mild, moderate, or severe. The chapter also covers the role and evidence base for medication and key issues when prescribing for people with intellectual disability.

Sundowner syndrome is a common neuropsychiatry syndrome seen in residents of long-term care. Several theories are proposed to explain the pathophysiology and contributing factors. Treatment options are also discussed.

Diet is one of the ‘big three’ modifiable health behaviours (together with sleep and physical activity) (Wickham et al., 2020). The World Health Organization (WHO, 2020) defines a healthy diet as achieving energy balance, limiting energy intake from total fats, free sugars and salt and increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts. Regular consumption of a wide variety of foods from key food groups in the right proportions and consuming the right amount of food and drink are conducive to achieving, improving, enhancing and maintaining a healthy body weight (National Health Service (NHS), 2022) and health by reduction of the risk of chronic illness (WHO, 2020).

The death of George Floyd in 2020 spurred the Black Lives Matter movement and generated widespread social consciousness about the persistence of institutional racism in its many forms and the impact it has had in creating disparities in healthcare, education and criminal justice. One significant response was in the push for educational reforms, particularly in North America and parts of Europe, to decolonise. This book continues the decolonising work done in the pioneering field of cultural psychiatry, focusing on the UK context. Cultural psychiatry has made headway in decolonising former traditions of psychiatry. A gap that needs to be addressed with some urgency, however, is the representation of views of non-white psychiatrists. An assumption when discussing therapeutic relationships is that the patient is from an ethnic minority background, often from a BAME group, and by implication, the psychiatrist is white and from the majority group. The second part of this assumption overlooks the experiences of psychiatrists from non-white ethnicities, and it is this that defines the scope of the book. Elicited through interview, the accounts explored the lived experiences of South Asian psychiatrists in the UK, negotiating the shifts between their cultural identities especially framed as the culture of their ethnicity and British culture.

In the past women who were deemed to be ‘difficult’ were called ‘hysterical’ and their ‘odd’ behaviour even exhibited in lecture theatres, for entertainment, to doctors in training. But today, even after decades of feminism, are women still being dismissed as ‘out of our minds’ when we complain? The focus of the last two decades has been on men’s mental health because of their higher suicide rate. However, women are suffering significantly too in many ways and still disproportionately, losing out in mental health care. Gender plays a key role in how we experience our mental health but is paid insufficient attention. What has gone wrong for women and girls? Why are we still ‘out of our minds’ and what can we do about it?

It is a privilege to edit a textbook in the subject to which we devote our professional lives. We were both influenced by Derek Chiswick and Rosemary Cope’s text that set out a list of essential topics. Part of the reward for the work of renewing this textbook has been to nudge new topics into the canon of forensic psychiatry.

Research points out that one reason that many individuals fail to achieve and/or maintain sobriety is that they have inadequate coping skills for dealing with stressful situations and painful feelings. Therefore, the key to preventing relapse is to gain and practice new skills for coping with both anticipated and potentially unforeseen challenges. Yet, simply acquiring these coping skills does not guarantee sustained recovery. One also needs to effectively practice these skills and work a sustainable recovery program. This is evidenced by the fact that addiction treatment and relapse prevention programs have high rates of relapse, despite individuals having a plethora of skills available to them and often being highly motivated for recovery. What the authors highlight in the workbook is that there is a mind-body system, called the I-System, that hinders individuals in recovery from effectively applying these skills and recovery practices, saps their motivation, and causes them to veer off their chosen recovery pathways. From a psychological standpoint, the I-System serves as a regulatory mechanism that maintains psychic balance and prevents psychic disintegration. The approach outlined in the workbook teaches the reader how to recognize and “befriend” this hindrance – so that instead of it being an impediment, it can serve as a compass that guides them through their activities of daily living to stay true to their chosen recovery pathways. The practices in the workbook centers on discerning mind-body practices that support regulation of both mental and physical health, preserving the inherent resilience of our true self. The introduction provides an overview of the workbook and brief introduction to the theory that informs the workbook. The workbook is structured progressively, with each section building on information provided previously. The exercise questions are easy to understand and apply, aiming to heighten the reader’s self-awareness of the dynamics that underlie their addictive behaviour in several key areas of life. The workbook is divided into six sections, each detailing an aspect of a Recovery Resilience Practice and outlining various exercises to help foster their recovery resilience and well-being. Initial exercises aim to unearth what might be hindering their resilience, ultimately resulting in diminished mental and physical functioning. The authors equip readers with a baseline measurement to monitor progress as they gradually introduce various practices and exercises in a systematic way.

Extremism has recently been described as one of the most pressing problems in contemporary society (Litter & Lee, 2023). The burst of extremism in today’s world has happened as the hodgepodge of different ideologies replaced the hegemonic ideological blocks of the Cold War (Ugarriza, 2009) and the rise of digital technologies catalyzed this change (Litter & Lee, 2020). In order to propose policies or interventions to reduce or eliminate extremism, it is necessary to understand its causes. What is clear is that extremism results from a multitude of causes, not just one. In this volume, we will focus on one specific contributor which has received relatively little attention in the past: social exclusion.