Psychoeducational Tutoring

Our present mental health system emphasizes the medical model: diagnosis of mental disorders and treatment, usually with drugs or psychotherapy,delivered by licensed professionals and paid for by medical insurance. While not rejecting the medical model, this book advocates an educational model: a plan for teaching psychological skills, through textbook-focused instruction, modeling of desirable patterns, reinforcement, practice exercises, and other straightforward and tested educational techniques. Services can be delivered by nonprofessionals as well as by therapists, and by telephone as well as in person. This book gives a partial answer to the questions, What should a psychoeducational curriculum for children look like? and How can we train nonprofessionals (such as college students) to deliver such a curriculum?
Dr. Strayhorn is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, affiliated with the Organization for Psychoeducational Tutoring.