Mental Retardation and Psychiatric Disorders

Treating Suicidal Behavior in the Mentally Retarded: The Case of Kim

“…Cognitive-behavior therapy (Kendall & Braswell, 1985) is another approach that has been used effectively with patients who, like Kim, present with mild mental retardation and affective disorder. The social skills training model and problem-solving model appear to work equally well in either the individual or group therapy format, although we have found the 5-step problem-solving model in the group format to be particularly useful (Barrett et al, 1992). In this model patients are challenged to: (1) identify the problem; (2) dictate a list of potential responses to the problem; (3) predict what would happen if they chose a particular response from their list of potential responses; (4) select a single response; and (5) evaluate its effect.…”