Claudia J. Strauss

Extremely light and narrowly focused on locked units. Not worth the money

Very limited focus book used in diakonia class. It's focus is on the public, who may never have had a person in a locked unit. For general practitioners, the info is of limited value as the skills represented in the book are not representative of the full skill set needed for communication in a broader setting (not just a locked Alzheimer's unit)

This is a great book that helped me deal with some of my students with anxiety issues.

Speaking as someone who purchased and read this book before I personally dealt with depression i have bit of a different perspective. I thought it was very useful for ideas on how to talk to the person in my life who was depressed and now that i am stuck in this state i have actually recommended it to my friends. the techniques and phrases to say and not say really help a lot. only complaint is that i wish it were a bit longer, that it had more ideas for helpful things.