Painful Questions

Photos and commentary on cover of copy 1 differ from that of copy 2.

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe mental illness that can be devastating for patients and their loved ones. Whether you are a newly diagnosed patient or a relative of someone suffering from this condition, this book offers help. 100 Questions & Answers About Schizophrenia: Painful Minds, Third Edition provides authoritative, practical answers to your questions about symptoms, diagnosis, treatment options, sources of support, and much more. Expert psychiatrist Dr. Lynn E. DeLisi has updated her book with new facts, statistics, and helpful information that many patients and their families seek, including new progress in genetics, updates on medication use and other new treatments, new emphasis on early detection and treatment, as well as new diagnostic structures with DSM-V, and for research, the RDoC. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone coping with the physical, mental, and emotional turmoil of schizophrenia.

More than ever, society faces painful choices in the allocation of resources for health care. How it makes these choices, and how wise they are, will determine the quality and character of health care for years to come. David Mechanic examines existing and impending dilemmas the American health care system must manage as it confronts these choices. He explores conceptual approaches to health and health care, showing how these translate into research, and defines a strategy for informed choice. The result is a masterful volume by one of our leading medical sociologists at the peak of his career. Mechanic looks at the continuing emphasis on biomedical technology in the context of growing economic, constraints, as medical care becomes more expensive and demands become greater. He examines the discrepancy between public expectations and how health care is actually provided, and points out increasing discordance between demographic trends and disease patterns and the medical system's emphasis on acute care. Of particular concern is the enormous gap between entitlements for medical care and the increasing need for long-term care. This gap is of particular concern because of the United States's enormous investment in health care, which now consumes 11 percent of the Gross National Product, Although there is no particular consensus on what is an appropriate level of investment in health, policymakers are impatient with the medical system's apparent inability to control costs, and are concerned as well about the competition for resources between health and other sectors. Mechanic examines new trends, such as managed care, and transformation of the role of those who provide health care from patient advocates to allocators of services-a crucial distinction. The choices that will have to be made in the next decades are difficult They will also be painful, but they are inevitable. The key challenge will be to respond to the anxieties of the 37 million uninsured children and adults, the growing numbers of frail elderly, and the needs of patients with serious mental illness and other chronic disabilities. All of this must be accomplished while maintaining a high level of service for the rest of the population, and without breaking the bank. To achieve this, Mechanic argues, health services must be shaped to enhance function and quality of life, and not simply in response to technological imperatives. In its profound understanding of the social and political context, in which competitive initiative, the growth of regulation, new health care systems, and approaches for making research sensitive to patients are all evident, "Painful Choices "provides a framework for responsive and meaningful policy analysis.

Book 2 tells of Chock coping with being molested and raped at the age of ten, and years of racial bullying in school, and years of spousal abuse by the men she trusted during her adult years. At the age of sixteen Chock was married to an abusive man for twenty-three years. Three years after Chock’s divorce, she meets Isaac. Chock decided to leave her home and live with Isaac in Los Angeles. With Isaac, Chock began to feel different about herself. To save Isaac’s life, Chock had to put on another pair of big-girl panties. She was forced to find the bitch in her that she had buried and tried to keep hidden by pretending that the ugliness hadn’t happened to her.

Reviews the issues involved in most of the principal medical-ethical dilemmas that face our society from a multidisciplinary point of view. Updated to reflect the many changes that have occurred in medical-ethical issues.

Representing two generations of counselor education and practice, Megan Anna Neff and Mark McMinn provide practitioners with a fresh look at integration in a postmodern world. Modeling how to engage hard questions, they consider how different theological views, gendered perspectives, and cultures integrate with psychology and counseling.

An exploration of why people all over the world love to engage in pain on purpose--from dominatrices, religious ascetics, and ultramarathoners to ballerinas, icy ocean bathers, and sideshow performers Masochism is sexy, human, reviled, worshipped, and can be delightfully bizarre. Deliberate and consensual pain has been with us for millennia, encompassing everyone from Black Plague flagellants to ballerinas dancing on broken bones to competitive eaters choking down hot peppers while they cry. Masochism is a part of us. It lives inside workaholics, tattoo enthusiasts, and all manner of garden variety pain-seekers. At its core, masochism is about feeling bad, then better--a phenomenon that is long overdue for a heartfelt and hilarious investigation. And Leigh Cowart would know: they are not just a researcher and science writer--they're an inveterate, high-sensation seeking masochist. And they have a few questions: Why do people engage in masochism? What are the benefits and the costs? And what does masochism have to say about the human experience? By participating in many of these activities themselves, and through conversations with psychologists, fellow scientists, and people who seek pain for pleasure, Cowart unveils how our minds and bodies find meaning and relief in pain--a quirk in our programming that drives discipline and innovation even as it threatens to swallow us whole.