This book gives an overview of some of the current cognitive behavioural treatment protocols used for people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. It is based on the premise that, although research on psychological processes responsible for the development and maintenance of psychotic symptoms in the early 1990s gave rise to the development of cognitive behavioural interventions for psychosis, these treatments were originally generic (still in line with the traditional psychiatric model of schizophrenia) in the sense that they aimed at the stable, medication-resistant group as a whole, not focusing on any specific symptoms or clinical presentations. The multifaceted nature of the disorder was therefore somewhat downplayed. More recent treatment protocols, covered in this book, target more specific clinical presentations, such as distress and harmful compliance with command hallucinations, PTSD in the context of schizophrenia, and insomnia, to name but a few, with the hope of ameliorating paranoid delusions. All over, this book is very practical and to be recommended to therapists that want to get an insight into how problems associated with psychotic experiences can be effectively treated psychologically. The chapters are mostly structured in the same way, first explaining the theoretical and empirical rational for each treatment, followed by a description of the treatment protocol. The chapters then end with a clinical case example.

A reservation is needed here though. The title of the book indicates that it is an overview of evidence-based treatments and, although there is good evidence for the utility of some interventions, it is perhaps somewhat bold to call all of the protocols in this book evidence-based. A minority of them are supported by pilot studies or small sample RCTs and further evidence is still being gathered. Still, the results from the studies made so far are generally quite promising, although the standards set for the evidence required for treatments of mood and anxiety disorders to be considered empirically supported are not always met.

One final observation is that although the book certainly is for the most part about CBT for problems associated with psychosis (in line with the title of the book), one chapter is about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for acute treatment of hospitalized patients with psychosis. It can easily be (and should be) argued that ACT is not CBT. The proponents of ACT even make an effort to differentiate ACT from “traditional” CBT. Instead of striving for belief change, which is the core of CBT, ACT aims to teach patients to accept symptoms and make little, if any, attempt to reduce them. ACT simply seems to reject the core tenet of cognitive therapy that belief change is at the heart of recovery. The chapter therefore does not belong in any book specifically about CBT, although it could be appropriately included in a book more generally about psychological therapies or talking therapies.

Apart from these reservations, this is an accessible book, easy to read, mostly very descriptive of the treatments covered, and generally a good overview of treatments likely to be of help to people suffering from psychosis.