Faculty Contact Information:
1. Telephone: 0033-(0)3-88-22-21-10. I live in France and the first two numbers indicate the country code and the following 0 is only used when calling within France. Otherwise, drop the first 0 when dialing. I have an answering machine and will be able to contact you within 24 hours within the week.
2. Email: My email address is: priceb@faculty.ed.umuc.edu. With the number of students in class writing to me about various issues, it may be helpful to include a summary of any previous correspondence to help my memory.
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Consultation:
| Consultation is available by either email or telephone, although email is probably more reliable as I will also be commuting a lot. | |
Required Texts and Readings:
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Preston,J., O'Neal, J., and Talaga, M. (2004) 4th Ed. Handbook of Clinical Psychopharmacology for Therapists. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
Preston,J., and Johnson,J. (2004) 5th ed. Clinical Psychopharmacology Made Ridiculously Simple. Miami, FL: Medmaster. | |
Supplementary Readings:
| All graduate students should be prepared to utilize the UMUC online library. The library contains a large number of full text academic journals that are free of charge and immediately available. The library homepage also contains a number of links related to improving students’ research and writing skills. | |
Recommended Journals:
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Course Description:
| Prerequisite: 21 hours of graduate psychology courses and permission of the Counseling Program Director. This course is designed for non-medical psychotherapists and counselors. Students will be presented an overview of the current therapeutic use of psychotropic drugs. A brief history of psychopharmacology, and overview of neuroanatomy, a survey of current research on neurotransmitters, and a review of pharmacological terminology will be given. Specific drugs to be considered include the narcotic analgesics, the sedative hypnotics, stimulants, neuroleptics and atypical antipsychotics, anxiolytics, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers, including lithium. | |
Course Goals:
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This course is designed to enable students to become an effective practitioner, having a knowledge of drug use and misuse, skills in identifying and assessing problems presented by the client and the ability to formulate treatment strategy appropriate to the client's needs and concerns, competence in knowledge of legal and ethical issues of counseling, and a knowledge of sources of information about psychopharmacologic interventions. (At present the course is an elective in the counseling degree program.) | |
Course Objectives:
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At the conclusion of the course, the student will be able to:
1. Describe the major classes of psychoactive medications.
2. Provide a rationale for prescribing specific classes of medications used for depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of the indications and contraindications of using each of the classes of psychotropic medications.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of the counselor’s responsibility in working with psychiatrists and physicians.
5. Be able to describe how psychotropic medications interact with other medications and substances.
6. Be able to discuss the dangers of iatrogenic conditions and abuse of medications.
7. Be able to identify symptoms of adverse side effects of medications.
8. Be able to identify the proper use of psychotropic medications in at-risk populations such as children, the elderly and those who are in institutions.
9. Be able to describe the benefits and dangers associated with complementary and alternative substances, such as herbal remedies, for the treatment of mental disorders. | |
Grading Information:
Students’ performance will be graded based upon a percentage of a total of possible 300 points obtained during the course. In general, it will be necessary to obtain a minimum of 90% of the course points to achieve an A, at least 80% of the points for a B, at least 70% of total possible points for a C, and anything below 70% is a F.
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Course Requirements:
The following course tasks will include:
1. Midterm Exam (33% of total points).
2. Final Exam (33%).
3. Student Presentation (33% of total points).
In general, it is not permissible to resubmit whole assignments done for another class as a fulfillment of these course requirements. However, portions of previous assignments may be considered acceptable. Students should confer with the instructor prior to submission to determine if such content would be acceptable.
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Description of Course Requirements:
1. Student Presentation. Students will prepare a class presentation of the issues pertaining to the application of drugs to address mental health problems. Guidelines for the presentation are:
__(a) The student will complete an annotated bibliography of a minimum of 10 sources. A copy must be provided for each class member.
__(b) The Student will select one article that best describes the issues relevant to working with this diverse population and supply each class member with a copy.
__(c) The student should provide a 2-page outline summarizing the main points of their presentation for each class member. The following outline should be followed for your presentation and summary:
____(i) Statistics or other sociodemographic facts about the population.
____(ii) Issues or problems unique to the population.
____(iii) The role of counseling or other helping considerations that may be used in conjunction with, or in place of, medications.
Details of other specific questions that should be addressed by the presentations will be given in class. Student presentations will receive feedback by the instructor and fellow students, although the final grade will primarily come from the instructor.
2. Midterm. The midterm exam will contain multiple-choice items and will address equally the information presented in lectures and in the assigned readings. The exam will be administered onine and students will receive instructions on how to receive login information and submit answes. The instructor retains the privilege of reviewing the test items’ discrimination and difficulty indices to determine whether or not they should be retained and students’ test scores will be raised by the number of items not retained.
3. Final Exam. The final will be take-home essay in format and will use both professional literature and case material to accompany the questions. Students will receive the final exam one week prior to the final weekend and their responses will be due by Sunday evening of the final weekend. | |
Course Schedule:
Weekend One
Readings Preston, et al. Chapters 1 - 4; Preston & Johnson Chapter 1
Topic One Review of psychophysiology: neuron, synapse, neurotransmitters, and receptors.
Topic Two Principles of psychopharmacology
Weekend Two
Readings Preston, et al. Chapters 5,6,7,10, 15, 16, 18; Preston & Johnson Chapters 2, 3, 5
Topic One The antidepressants
Topic Two The antipsychotics and mood stabilizers
Weekend Three
Readings Preston, et al. Chapters 8,9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21; Preston & Johnson Chapters 4, 6, 7, 8
Topic One The anxiolytics
Topic Two Counseling issues for persons receiving medications and alternatives to conventional medications
Weekend Four
Topic One Student Presentations
Topic Two Student Presentations and Wrap-up | |
Academic Policies:
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Note: Any written assignment in this course may be submitted to TurnItIn.Com. This statement constitutes prior notice.
The official university policy on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty can be found at http://www.umuc.edu/policy/aa15025.shtml. Section I.C. states: "Faculty may determine if the resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC), partially or in its entirety, is acceptable when assigning a grade on that piece of course work. Faculty must provide this information in their written syllabi. If the resubmission of course work is deemed to be unacceptable, a charge may not be brought under this Policy and will be handled as indicated in the written syllabi."
Please refer to Description of Course Requirements for specific information on how resubmissions will be treated in this course and to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog for information on the following:
Academic Integrity
Course Load
Exception to Policy
Grade Appeal Process
Make-up Examinations
Nondiscrimination
Students with Disabilities
Hard copies of the catalog are available at your local Education Center. | |
Faculty Bio:
I am a Collegiate Professor, teaching both undergraduate psychology and graduate counseling classes for Maryland. I grew up in the Ozarks of Missouri and have all my degrees from Midwestern institutions (Central Missouri State, University of Kansas, and Iowa State University). This is my seventh year teaching for UMUC in the overseas division, having first taught in Okinawa, then transferring to England, and then France. Prior to joining Maryland, I was a licensed psychologist providing outpatient counseling and supervising a community mental health services’ program within a medium-sized detention center. My two major professional interests include the interface between mental health policy and law and cross-cultural issues in counseling and psychology.
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