****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Overall excellent reference for the background, progress, and prospects for bipolar disorder and its sufferers. As the book points out, along with appropriate medications, family support is critical to a favorable disease course. Education of the patient and family is the cornerstone of episodic recovery and the prevention of relapses (as much as is possible), and this book provides excellent, useful summary information as well as proven approaches for resolving difficult issues. Many of the tools described in the book such as active listening and basic problem solving skills have wide application beyond the FFT approach. Their application to bipolar patients and their families, though, requires great delicacy at times, and the authors provide helpful insights through actual clinical examples. Each bipolar case and family is different, and there are no universal cookie-cutter answers, but combined with recent pharmacological advances, this proposed approach provides the best hope for a favorable course.As the primary supporter of a bipolar family member, I've learned many of these lessons the hard way over the years. Even with that long experience, I found new insights here. My experience strongly supports the authors' premise that the patient and his/her family are THE critical elements in a favorable episodic recovery and long-term maintenance. Though written for the clinician, Bipolar Disorder: A Family-Focused Treatment Approach is easily understandable and usable by family members and patients. I highly recommend it for both.
