In "Exploring the Importance of Mental Health: Awareness and Support Systems," Jude Hawthorne delves into one of the most pressing issues of our time. Mental health, a critical aspect of overall well-being, is often misunderstood and stigmatized. This insightful book addresses the societal challenges and institutional gaps that exacerbate the struggles of those with mental disorders. Hawthorne highlights the importance of recognizing mental health issues as legitimate illnesses and advocates for a more informed and compassionate approach. By shedding light on the biological roots of mental illnesses and the essential role of psychiatric professionals, this book aims to foster a more supportive and understanding environment for individuals affected by mental health issues. "Exploring the Importance of Mental Health" is an essential read for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of mental health and contribute to a more inclusive and empathetic society.
Bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing guidelines, this text aims to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.
The question of whether someone is psychologically healthy or mentally ill, and the fundamental nature of mental health underlying that question has been debated in cultural, academic, and clinical settings for millennia. This book provides an overview of how people have conceptualized and understood mental illness through the ages. The book begins by looking at mental illness in humanity’s evolutionary past then moves through the major historical epochs: the mythological, the Classical, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and modern, and the postmodern. At each point, it focuses on major elements that emerged regarding how people judged sanity and insanity and places major emphasis on the growing fields of psychiatry and psychology as they emerged and developed. As the book moves into the twenty-first century, Dr. Jenkins presents his integrated model of knowledge, a systemic, holistic model of the psyche that creates a conceptual foundation for understanding both psychological wellness and disorder and approaching assessment and diagnosis. This text provides a valuable exploration of mental health and illness across the ages and gives those already well versed in the subject matter a fresh perspective on the past and new model of knowledge and assessment for the future.
Contributors to this volume present and discuss new data which suggest that major mental disorder substantially increases the risk of violent crime. These findings come at a crucial time, since those who suffer from mental disorders are increasingly living in the community, rather than in institutions. The book describes the magnitude and complexity of the problem and offers hope that humane, effective intervention can prevent violent crime being committed by the seriously mentally disordered.
The Social Determinants of Mental Health aims to fill the gap that exists in the psychiatric, scholarly, and policy-related literature on the social determinants of mental health: those factors stemming from where we learn, play, live, work, and age that impact our overall mental health and well-being. The editors and an impressive roster of chapter authors from diverse scholarly backgrounds provide detailed information on topics such as discrimination and social exclusion; adverse early life experiences; poor education; unemployment, underemployment, and job insecurity; income inequality, poverty, and neighborhood deprivation; food insecurity; poor housing quality and housing instability; adverse features of the built environment; and poor access to mental health care. This thought-provoking book offers many beneficial features for clinicians and public health professionals: Clinical vignettes are included, designed to make the content accessible to readers who are primarily clinicians and also to demonstrate the practical, individual-level applicability of the subject matter for those who typically work at the public health, population, and/or policy level. Policy implications are discussed throughout, designed to make the content accessible to readers who work primarily at the public health or population level and also to demonstrate the policy relevance of the subject matter for those who typically work at the clinical level. All chapters include five to six key points that focus on the most important content, helping to both prepare the reader with a brief overview of the chapter's main points and reinforce the "take-away" messages afterward. In addition to the main body of the book, which focuses on selected individual social determinants of mental health, the volume includes an in-depth overview that summarizes the editors' and their colleagues' conceptualization, as well as a final chapter coauthored by Dr. David Satcher, 16th Surgeon General of the United States, that serves as a "Call to Action," offering specific actions that can be taken by both clinicians and policymakers to address the social determinants of mental health. The editors have succeeded in the difficult task of balancing the individual/clinical/patient perspective and the population/public health/community point of view, while underscoring the need for both groups to work in a unified way to address the inequities in twenty-first century America. The Social Determinants of Mental Health gives readers the tools to understand and act to improve mental health and reduce risk for mental illnesses for individuals and communities. Students preparing for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) will also benefit from this book, as the MCAT in 2015 will test applicants' knowledge of social determinants of health. The social determinants of mental health are not distinct from the social determinants of physical health, although they deserve special emphasis given the prevalence and burden of poor mental health.
The importance of recognising the knowledge and the needs of service users and engaging them more proactively within the care process is now widely acknowledged, but it is not always clear how this can come about. The Lived Experience of Mental Health highlights individuals’ own lived and felt mental health experience in order to share their expertise about mental health problems and the care offered. This text begins by exploring the importance of engaging with the internal world of those living with various mental health problems and reflecting upon personal narratives as means of expressing and sharing experience, as well as the status of these narratives as 'evidence'. The central section of the book looks at five commonly experienced mental health states: anxiety problems, depression, mood extremes, states of altered reality (linked, for example, with psychosis and schizophrenia) and impaired cognition (linked, for example, with dementia). The chapters look at how the mental state in question is experienced, including the experience of it in the context of the wider world, where health and social care services and the responses of other people play a part. Drawing on personal narratives from a wide range of sources, this text foregrounds the voices of experts by experience and relates them to the academic literature. The narratives collectively convey a breadth of experience including both concepts of struggling and living well with mental health issues. The book ends by outlining resources where a range of first-person narratives can be accessed, from online forums to films, and providing a strategy for teaching and learning associated with the exploration of lived experience narratives. Designed for health professionals working with people experiencing mental health problems, this illuminating text uses personal narratives to emphasise the importance of person-centred care and participation by services users in their own care. It will also be an interesting read for experts by experiences themselves as well as their families and friends.
This book brings together two bodies of knowledge - wellbeing and recovery. Wellbeing and 'positive' approaches are increasingly influencing many areas of society. Recovery in mental illness has a growing empirical evidence base. For the first time, overlaps and cross-fertilisation opportunities between the two bodies of knowledge are identified. International experts present innovations taking place within the mental health system, which include wellbeing-informed new therapies, e-health approaches and peer-led recovery communities. State-of-the-art applications of wellbeing to the wider community are also described, across education, employment, parenting and city planning. This book will be of interest to anyone connected with the mental health system, especially people using and working in services, and clinical and administrators leaders, and those interested in using research from the mental health system in the wider community.
The Government recognises that many lifestyle-driven health problems are at alarming levels: obesity; high rates of sexually transmitted infections; a relatively large population of drug users; rising levels of harm from alcohol; 80,000 deaths a year from smoking; poor mental health; health inequalities between rich and poor. This white paper outlines the Government's proposals to protect the population from serious health threats; help people live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives; and improve the health of the poorest. It aims to empower individuals to make healthy choices and give communities and local government the freedom, responsibility and funding to innovate and develop ways of improving public health in their area. The paper responds to Sir Michael Marmot's strategic review of health inequalities in England post 2010 - "Fair society, healthy lives" (available at http://www.marmotreview.org/AssetLibrary/pdfs/Reports/FairSocietyHealthyLives.pdf) and adopts its life course framework for tackling the wider social determinants of health. A new dedicated public health service - Public Health England - will be created to ensure excellence, expertise and responsiveness, particularly on health protection where a national response is vital. The paper gives a timetable showing how the proposals will be implemented and an annex sets out a vision of the role of the Director of Public Health. The Department is also publishing a fuller story on the health of England in "Our health and wellbeing today" (http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_122238.pdf), detailing the challenges and opportunities, and in 2011 will issue documents on major public health issues.
