Co-occurring Addictive and Psychiatric Disorders.A Practice-Based Handbook from a European Perspective

Ian Hamilton (Ian Hamilton is Lecturer at Health Sciences, University of York, York, UK.)

Advances in Dual Diagnosis

ISSN: 1757-0972

Article publication date: 17 August 2015

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Keywords

Citation

Ian Hamilton (2015), "Co-occurring Addictive and Psychiatric Disorders.A Practice-Based Handbook from a European Perspective", Advances in Dual Diagnosis, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 163-163. https://doi.org/10.1108/ADD-03-2015-0003

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Geert Dom and Franz Moggi bring editorial credibility to this book, both are well-respected clinicians and academics. They use their extensive experience and numerous collaborations by inviting 48 expert contributors from around the world, although most are based in Europe, this Eurocentric base should not be a surprise given the title of the book.

The author’s motivation for writing this book is to redress the bias in the literature to date which has been dominated by American research. This they assert has left Europe importing evidence which may not fit the varying treatment presentations and priorities in the diverse group of countries that makes up Europe. They also hope that the book will improve and stimulate collaboration between academics, clinicians and policy makers in Europe with the ambition of improving the care and treatment for people with a dual diagnosis.

The book is organised into three sections:

Part 1 is a general section which orientates the reader to the themes of epidemiology, aetiology and healthcare systems.

Part 2 turns to the main diagnostic categories, but interestingly includes topics such as gambling, learning difficulty and internet addiction.

Part 3 not only explores assessment and treatment but considers specific populations such as adolescents, forensic issues and those with somatic problems.

Organising the book in this way seems to work well enough, although only the e-book was available for this review which has the advantage of searching electronically for a term or subject that interests the reader. I’m not sure how easy this would be in a hard copy version. Given the breadth of subject matter and the way most readers are likely to access this text being able to locate an area of interest efficiently is important and could be hampered or enhanced by a books organisation of its material.

Each chapter starts by giving an overview of the content and concludes by synthesising the main points. A strength of the book is the way information is regularly summarised and made available, for example when dealing with the diverse and potentially complex issue of assessment in Chapter 17, the authors use a flow chart and table to bring together the salient points.

The book concludes with some final thoughts and considerations which rightly include a call for parity between mental, physical and substance use care. There is a plea to move beyond limited diagnostic outcome measures for people with a dual diagnosis and adopt a more individualised and recovery based approach instead. This they argue is optimised when we actively and meaningfully involve service users in shaping what is important, although paradoxically this voice appears to be missing in the book.

This is a very readable and up to date resource which will serve a varied audience well including students, academics, clinicians, commissioners, policy makers or even just the curious.

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