Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health

A Complete Guide to the Food-Mood Connection

Author: James Lake and Leslie Korn

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Hardcover

A major component of a client's clinical profile is diet, which can greatly influence mental well-being. For example, dietary changes can alleviate anxious and depressive symptoms. But few therapists have any nutrition training and many don't know where to begin. This book provides an essential introductory primer.

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PRODUCT INFORMATION

Summary

Description

Diet is an essential component of a client's clinical profile. Few therapists, however, have any nutritional training, and many don't know where to begin. In Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health, Leslie Korn provides clinicians with a practical guide to the complex relationship between what we eat and the way we think, feel, and interact with the world.

Where there is mental illness there is frequently a history of digestive and nutritional problems. Digestive problems in turn exacerbate mental distress, all of which can be improved by nutritional changes. It's not unusual for a deficit or excess of certain nutrients to disguise itself as a mood disorder. Indeed, nutritional deficiencies factor into most mental illness-from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia and PTSD-and dietary changes can work alongside or even replace medications to alleviate symptoms and support mental wellness.

Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health offers the mental health clinician the principles and practices necessary to provide clients with nutritional counseling to improve mood and mental health. Integrating clinical evidence with the author's extensive clinical experience, it takes clinicians step-by-step through

the essentials for integrating nutritional therapies into mental health treatment. Throughout, brief clinical vignettes illustrate commonly encountered obstacles and how to overcome them.

Readers will learn:

Why nutrition matters in mental health

The role of various nutrients in nourishing both the brain and the gut, the "second brain"

Typical nutritional culprits that underlie or exacerbate specific mental disorders

Assessment techniques for evaluating a client's unique nutritional needs, and counseling methods for the challenging but rewarding process of nutritional change.

Leading-edge protocols for the use of various macro- and micronutrients, vitamins, and supplements to improve mental health

Considerations for food allergies, sensitivities, and other special diets

The effects of foods and nutrients on DSM-5 categories of illness, and alternatives to pharmaceuticals for treatment

Comprehensive, stage-based approaches to coaching clients about dietary plans, nutritional supplements, and other resources

Ideas for practical, affordable, and individualized diets, along with optimal cooking methods and recipes

Nutritional strategies to help with withdrawal from drugs, alcohol and pharmaceuticals

And much more. With this resource in hand, clinicians can enhance the efficacy of all their methods and be prepared to support clients' mental health with more effective, integrated treatment.

Critic Reviews

“"To say this book is a complete guide is an understatement . . . Dr. Korn manages to offer every imaginable support one needs from peer-reviewed data validating her assertions to sample dialogues, case vignettes, goal setting procedures and essential outcomes. . . . The Appendices are a treasure trove in themselves with comprehensive resources, guidelines, recipes, a sample client intake form, food-mood diary, and lists of foods containing gluten, lactose, casein, dairy, corn and oh so much more. There's no doubt in my mind that this is the go-to textbook for clinicians wanting to bring awareness to food and its impact on their clients' mental health. . . . [T]his isn't the kind of book you read once and set on the shelf; rather, it's a companion to reference throughout the day working with clients, listening to friends and hearing your own body speak."”

Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health is an absolute must-read for all mental health professionals, and highly recommended for anyone wanting to understand the connection between what we eat and how our minds function. Dr. Korn brings two crucial concepts to the table: the importance of the diet of our ancestors and the significance of biochemical individuality. This book will change lives!--Gray L. Graham, BA, NTP, President and Founder of the Nutritional Therapy Association (4/14/2016 12:00:00 AM)
Leslie Korn has written the essential book for mental health care providers. As I read Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health, I was astonished at the level of detail. It is engagingly written and fascinatingly encyclopedic in its reach. The delicious recipes alone provide a pathway to health. This book should be a bible for the mental health field.--Peggy Knickerbocker, James Beard Award-winning cookbook author (4/14/2016 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

Leslie Korn, PhD, is a clinician specializing in mental health nutrition and integrative medicine. A core faculty member of Capella University's Mental Health Counseling Program, she served as a Fulbright scholar on traditional medicine, a Clinical Fellow at Harvard Medical School, and a NationalInstitutes of Health-funded research scientist in mind/body medicine. In 1975, she founded the Center for Traditional Medicine, a public health clinic in rural indigenous Mexico that she directed for over 25 years. Author of six books, she teaches and consults internationally for mental health professionals and tribal communities. James Lake, MD, is on the clinical faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University. He practices in Central California.

Product Details

Publisher

WW Norton & Co

Published

29th January 2016

Pages

464

ISBN

9780393709940

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CUSTOMER REVIEWS

27 Nov, 2018

This book relies on a lot of non-evidence based thinking and is not the scientific resource I expected. I am sure when it comes to nutrition there is some good information, but because the book refers to adrenal fatigue (without the caveat that this is not a medically-recognised condition) and microwaves changing the DNA of food (which is not true), I found myself unable to trust anything in the book. I don’t know what I don’t know and there were no flags to recognise non-evidence based ideas.
By Katie

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