Telemental Health : Clinical, Technical, and Administrative Foundations for Evidence-Based Practice

Acquiring access to mental health treatments can be difficult for those who are not near mental health facilities. The growing field of telemental health addresses this problem by using video and telephone conferencing to provide patients with access to psychiatric professionals. However, the process faces challenges to gain adoption into mainstream medical practice and to develop an evidence base supporting its efficacy. In this comprehensive text, leading professionals in the field provide an introduction to telemental health and explore how to construct a therapeutic space in different contexts when conducting telemental health, how to improve access for special populations, and how to develop an evidence base and best practice in telemental health. In the past 15 years, implementation of telemental health has seemed to follow more from need than from demonstrated efficacy. The thorough and insightful chapters within this book show the importance of continued research and thoughtful development of ethical and responsible practice that is needed in the field and begin to lay out steps in constructing this process. Telemental Health will be an essential book for all clinical practitioners and researchers in mental health fields.