Description: This course has been designed to provide a framework for clergy to understand the basics of psychopharmacology. Teaching goals will include the rationale for prescribing psychiatric medicine, the nature of the conditions prescribed for, the mechanism of the drugs prescribed and the effects and side effects of different classes of medicine. Students will have an opportunity to learn about and think through their responsibilities toward congregants and community members who present themselves as in need of mental health services. These encounters can be difficult to understand and this intersession course will bring issues of psychiatric medication, their usefulness, and use into clearer focus for clergy who contemplate the need for making appropriate referrals. This course will cover the Science and Judaism requirement.

Seminary: Academy For Jewish Religion

Science areas: Medicine, psychopharmacology