This book is essential reading for all Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs) and those students and practitioners on mental health Post-Qualifying awards. It covers the core competencies of the AMHP and how the use of medication fits within the roles of the mental health professional. Fully updated to include aspects of the recently amended Mental Health Act 1983, this guide shows how the law is applied to compulsory administration of medication, the law relating to consent to treatment and the relevance to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The importance of psychiatry and medication for AMHPs
Psychiatrists: training and how they practise
An overview of psychiatry and classification
Psychotic disorders
Neurotic disorders, substance abuse and personality disorders
Forensic psychiatry
Psychiatry of old age
Psychiatry and risk assessment
Patients as parents
Child and adolescent psychiatry
Treatment issues in psychiatry
Classification of medication in psychiatry
Anti-depressants and mood stabilisers
Anti-psychotics
Anxiolytics, sedative/hypnotics, substance abuse
Older adults, children, unlicensed drugs
The law and psychiatric treatment
Treatment under the Mental Health Act