What constitutes Psychoeducation for Mental Health accredited Social Workers

Psychoeducation is one of the allowable therapies under Australia's Medicare system of community based mental health care. That  doesn't mean it is a therapy for only people with mental health issues: it is one of the therapies allowable for those with a mental health treatment plan referral from a doctor to a mental health professional. Simply put, it's one of the ones you can get a medicare rebate from.

While psychoeducation grew out of treating people with mental illness and their families/supporters, it is now widely used for all manner of psychosocial presentations in counselling because it is a therapy that empowers people to make their own choices of recovery based on information giving. 

Psychoeducation is made up of four elements (things the counsellor uses in session):

1. Briefing a person and their supports (with permission) about their illness or subjective presenting issue
2. Problem-solving training
3. Communication training
4. Self-assertiveness training

These sound like things that most of my clients and professional supervisees have always sought to integrate into their lives. Hell, they're things I want in my life too.

In a recent article out of India, Sarkhel, Singh and Arora (2020) suggest that any therapist or counsellor doing psychoeducation needs to include the following in every session:

1. Etiological factors (causes, origins, reasons)
2. Common signs and symptoms
3. Awareness regarding the early signs of relapse/recurrence
4. How to cope with the situation
5. Various treatment options available
6. When and how to seek treatment
7. Need for adherence to treatment as per the guidance of treating team
8. Long-term course and outcome
9. Dos and don’ts for family members while dealing with the patient
10. Clearing myths and misconceptions about the illness and dispelling stigma

Here's a most interesting bit from Sarkhel, Singh and Arora's (2020) paper though: psychoeducation can be active or passive.

Active psychoeducation is where the therapist is involved with the client and/or their family.

Passive psychoeducation is the take away homework where the client is asked to read a pamphlet/book and integrate the information on their own.

This is interesting for Mental Health accredited Social Workers because it is what we call bibliotherapy: the use of the written word to help solve a problem. Bibliotherapy is not on the list of Focused Psychological Strategies but psychoeducation is.

Knowing that a medical model that values the Focused Psychological Strategies will accept passive psychoeducation as an intervention may give greater voracity to your report writing back to referring Doctors. After all, part of the definition of being a professional is having the ability to clearly articulate what you do in a way the hearer can understand.

in 2022, Cremers, Taylor and Quigley looked at the effectiveness of low intensity psychological interventions on the well being of older people. Bibliotherapy was found to be supportive and effective for low to mid depression in more than half of the sample (aged 60+). While it was evidenced effective at reducing depression it was not so for symptoms of anxiety.

What this tells us is that Bibliotherapy as a function of passive psychoeducation for depression is a reliable, evidenced based intervention in an older cohort who self selected.

Imagine if we could measure the effectiveness of Brene Brown bibliotherapy on a cohort who self select following a life changing experience that effected their mental well being. Oh hang on....that's what I'm doing my PhD on 😉

👵🏼 Megan Bayliss, Mental Health Social Worker

👩🏼‍🎓 PhD Candidate: social and cultural resistance to the status quo.

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