Personal recovery has three main dimensions: hope, agency and opportunity. The opportunity links it with social inclusion and thus peoples' participation in a wider society. Schizophrenia as a complex mental health disorder is ranked among the leading causes of disability worldwide. It influences all major areas of life: emotional and cognitive…

Evidence from experimental psychology provides unequivocal support for enhanced creativity among individuals who are prone to psychotic and mood disorders. At the same time, there is strong epidemiological evidence for greater incidence of creative achievement among those diagnosed with bipolar disorder (but not schizophrenia). This review…

Background: The expansion of user-friendly mental health services for young people is an important goal of mental health reform in Australia; however, stigma and discrimination associated with mental health conditions constitute major deterrents to help-seeking among young people. Objective: This paper reports on a qualitative study conducted in…

Schizophrenia and schizotypy have been often associated with above average creativity; however, empirical studies on the relationship between schizophrenia spectrum disorders and enhanced creativity generated inconsistent results. This research investigates if the association between schizophrenia spectrum disorders and creative potential levels…

This monograph describes how an SOC approach, coupled with specialized early psychosis intervention, can create a sustainable infrastructure, significantly decrease the duration of untreated psychosis, and improve service delivery and outcomes for youth and young adults with early signs of psychosis. [This product was made possible, in part, with…

Background: Mental health services for patients intellectual disabilities (ID) and additional mental illnesses are only sparsely studied. Objective: The objective was to describe a representative sample of patients with ID in a specialized psychiatric department. Methods: Data were collected from case files in a 7-year period. Of 143 invited…

There has been an increasing interest in possible connections between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia in the last decade. Neuropsychological comparison studies have, however, been few. The present study examined similarities and differences in intellectual and executive functioning between adults with Asperger syndrome (AS) and…

Background: There is no study to date that has examined the association between history of abuse and adaptive functioning deficits in youth with co-occurring and psychotic disorders or mood disorders. Method: This study used a retrospective chart review of 98 youth under the age of 18 (Mean age = 16.06 years) with co-occurring intellectual…

In this descriptive study, the academic success (graduation rate, graduating grade-point-average, semesters to graduation) and the patterns of academic engagement (time from first to last enrollment, characteristics of the "time-outs" taken, between-semester volatility in grade-point-average) for five groups of students with psychiatric…

Everybody on campus is responsible for recognizing and responding to students in crisis. Sometimes the difficulty is knowing when to intervene. Being alert to students' mental health and wellness needs is an essential part of work life on today's campuses--even when it means stepping out of one's own narrow professional roles or risking leaving…

Objective: We assessed the rate of recovery from schizophrenia in community-based psychosocial rehabilitation and whether psychosocial attributes predicted the achievement of recovery beyond demographic and clinical characteristics. Methods: We used data from 246 individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorder collected at baseline and at 6 and…

Schizophrenia is a leading cause of disability and health expenditure worldwide and is associated with homelessness, substance use, familial and social isolation, unemployment, involvement with the criminal justice system, stigma, and excess mortality. Prevention may be feasible through intervention with help-seeking "clinical high-risk"…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of a social contact and education intervention to improve attitudes to mental illness in first-year social work students. This was a 3-month cluster randomized controlled trial with two parallel arms: intervention (87) and control group (79). The intervention was a workshop led by an OBERTAMENT…

Professor Diane Zeeuw describes her son's experience of being diagnosed with schizophrenia in early adulthood, and how despite the fact that he may never hold a job or raise a family, or even be able to live fully independently, he still has a deep and abiding love of learning. Most serious psychiatric disorders are first diagnosed between the…

Given the removal of Asperger's Syndrome label in "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition," the impact of clinical labels upon the affective responses of college students was explored. A total of 120 college students read two vignettes depicting social interactions typical of a person with autism spectrum…