Early intervention in psychiatry

Early intervention in psychiatry has enormous appeal in the sense that it can reduce distress and disability and promote better long-term outcomes. However, extant research is patchy in terms of defining precisely what ‘early intervention’ should entail, as well as determining the elements of such interventions that might be helpful and not harmful. This chapter provides a brief overview of selected disorders, encompassing examples of disorders that have an onset in childhood (autism), teenage years/early adulthood (bipolar disorder), and in later life (dementia). The chapter then focuses on schizophrenia, as schizophrenia is a disorder ubiquitous across the globe in terms of prevalence, which carries substantial disability, and for which there has been a worldwide investment in early intervention.