A Holistic Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual Approach to Mental Health Treatment

Описание: SUMMARY: Dr. Ames will provide an overview of the last fifteen years of her forty-year research and clinical career in this presentation. She will discuss the recovery model for the treatment of mental illness. The recovery model is holistic and focuses upon a patient’s strengths, resilience, and preferences. The recovery model also incorporates considerations of the patient’s spiritual beliefs. She will review research supporting a bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach. She will highlight some of the interventions she and her colleagues have developed, such as a lifestyle changes program, a personal recovery plan, and spiritually integrated treatments for mental illness. The importance of recognizing moral injury as a contributor to mental illness and partnership with faith-based community groups will also be discussed.

PRESENTER: Donna Ames, M.D., is a psychiatrist with over 30 years of serving Veterans at the West Los Angeles VA Health Care System. She has been a researcher on clinical methods to optimize the treatment of serious mental illness for close to 40 years. Her CV includes over 100 publications about medication treatments and side effects, psychosocial treatments and now, recovery oriented, bio-psycho-social-spiritual approaches. Her research has been funded by the VA Merit Review Program, National Institute of Mental Health, the VA Office of Patient Centered Care and Private Foundations. She has worked in inpatient psychiatry for almost 20 years, while running an outpatient program simultaneously. She then developed a Psychosocial Recovery and Rehabilitation Center outpatient program where she served as a team leader for 10 years. She holds the title of Professor in Residence, Emeritus, at the Department of Psychiatry, University of California Los Angeles, UCLA, and has been a teacher and mentor for many hundreds of doctors, psychology interns and other trainees who have worked with her over the years. She collaborated with the chaplaincy at the VA on both clinical and research efforts for 10 years. Specifically, she collaborated with Dr. Harold Koenig, of Duke University in the development of a moral injury symptom scale as well as spiritually integrated treatments for moral injury. Most importantly she is a daughter, wife, mother, aunt, great-aunt, and grandmother.