Management of the self An interdisciplinary approach to self-management in psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: In recent years, there has been a rapidly increasing interest in self-management strategies in psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine (Siantz & Aranda, 2014; Crawford et al., 2014; Kemp, 2011). Among the conditions in which self-management is currently investigated in these contexts are bipolar disorder (Jones et al., 2011; Depp et al., 2009), depression (Van Grieken et al., 2015; Houle et al., 2013), post-traumatic stress disorder (Engel et al., 2015; Possemato et al., 2015), schizophrenia (Saito et al., 2013; Cimo et al., 2012), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (Bussing et al., 2016; Christiansen et al., 2014), irritable bowel syndrome (Eugenio et al., 2012), chronic fatigue syndrome (Meng, Friedberg, & Castora-Binkley, 2014, Friedberg et al., 2013), and fibromyalgia (Bourgault et al., 2015; Hamnes et al., 2012). These approaches aim to stimulate patients to be more actively engaged in their own care, and they intend to shift the burden of the responsibility for treatment success away from psychiatrists, doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals (Lawn et al., 2007; Davidson, 2005). Thus, acquiring the mastery of self-management is a critical component for patients in dealing with their conditions, and within mental healthcare it is commonly regarded as an innovative person-centered approach to provide individuals with the necessary skills to deal with the unique challenges they face in everyday life (Janney, Bauer, & Kilbourne, 2014; Stanghellini, Bolton, & Fulford, 2013).