This volume presents work at the interface of feminist theory and mental health. The editors a stellar array of contributors to continue the vital process of feminist theory building and critique.
Eric Maisel invites depression sufferers and their service providers to consider whether human sadness has been monetised into the disease of depression and asks readers to consider the personal implications of this 50 year cultural shift from human problem to medical ailment.
The world of mental illness is typically framed around symptoms and cures, where every client is given a label. In this challenging new book, Professor Bernard Guerin provides a fresh alternative to considering these issues, based in interdisciplinary social sciences and discourse analysis rather than medical studies or cognitive metaphors. A timely and articulate challenge to mainstream approaches, Guerin asks the reader to observe the ecological contexts for behavior rather than diagnose symptoms, to find new ways to understand and help those experiencing mental distress. This book shows the reader: how we attribute ‘mental illness’ to someone’s behavior why we call some forms of suffering ‘mental’ but not others what Western diagnoses look like when you strip away the theory and categories why psychiatry and psychology appeared for the first time at the start of modernity the relationship between capitalism and modern ideas of ‘mental illness’ why it seems that women, the poor and people of Indigenous and non-Western backgrounds have worse ‘mental health’ how we can rethink the ‘hearing of voices’ more ecologically how self-identity has evolved historically how thinking arises from our social contexts rather than from inside our heads. Offering solutions rather than theory to develop a new ‘post-internal’ psychology, How to Rethink Mental Illness will be essential reading for every mental health professional, as well as anyone who has either experienced a mental illness themselves, or helped a friend or family member who has.
In Abolishing the Concept of Mental Illness: Rethinking the Nature of Our Woes, Richard Hallam takes aim at the very concept of mental illness, and explores new ways of thinking about and responding to psychological distress. Though the concept of mental illness has infiltrated everyday language, academic research, and public policy-making, there is very little evidence that woes are caused by somatic dysfunction. This timely book rebuts arguments put forward to defend the illness myth and traces historical sources of the mind/body debate. The author presents a balanced overview of the past utility and current disadvantages of employing a medical illness metaphor against the backdrop of current UK clinical practice. Insightful and easy to read, Abolishing the Concept of Mental Illness will appeal to all professionals and academics working in clinical psychology, as well as psychotherapists and other mental health practitioners.
In this book, Kleinman proposes an international view of mental illness and mental care. Arthur Kleinman, M.D., examines how the prevalence and nature of disorders vary in different cultures, how clinicians make their diagnoses, and how they heal, and the educational and practical implications of a true understanding of the interplay between biology and culture.
Rethinking the Sociology of Mental Health is a collection of original papers introducing new ways of thinking sociologically about the terrain of mental health. There are more general papers about mental health and mental health policy and papers about specific types of mental illness and particular policy issues such as dangerousness.
"When I joined the Air Force in 2005, hostilities in Iraq were escalating, resulting in more frequent and longer deployments for just about everyone serving in the military, including psychologists. Soon thereafter, the suicide rate among military personnel also started to rise, especially in the Army and Marine Corps. During the first few years of that upward trend, the general sense was that the military was just having a few "bad years." In 2008, however, the age- and gender-adjusted Army and Marine suicide rates surpassed the U.S. general population rate. By the time I deployed to Iraq in February 2009, the military suicide rate had been rising steadily for three consecutive years; the initial assumption that we were simply experiencing a few bad years had dissolved, and an uncomfortable recognition that we had a clear problem on our hands had taken hold"--
The presumed link between mental disorder and violence has been the driving force behind mental health law and policy for centuries. Legislatures, courts, and the public have come to expect that mental health professionals will protect them from violent acts by persons with mental disorders. Yet for three decades research has shown that clinicians' unaided assessments of "dangerousness" are barely better than chance. Rethinking Risk Assessment: The MacArthur Study of Mental Disorder and Violence tells the story of a pioneering investigation that challenges preconceptions about the frequency and nature of violence among persons with mental disorders, and suggests an innovative approach to predicting its occurrence. The authors of this massive project -- the largest ever undertaken on the topic -- demonstrate how clinicians can use a "decision tree" to identify groups of patients at very low and very high risk for violence. This dramatic new finding, and its implications for the every day clinical practice of risk assessment and risk management, is thoroughly described in this remarkable and long-anticipated volume. Taken to heart, its message will change the way clinicians, judges, and others who must deal with persons who are mentally ill and may be violent will do their work.
-- Are patients aware of the fact that pharmacological therapies stress the brain in ways which may prevent or postpone symptomatic and functional recovery ? ==================================================== Rethinking Psychiatric D
* What are the main theories, methods and applications relevant to the study of health and illness from a psychological perspective? * In what ways can contemporary health psychology be critically 'rethought'? * What are the implications of this 'rethinking' for the future of health psychology? This introductory text presents a coherent overview of prevalent theories, methods and applications within contemporary health psychology. In particular, it provides a critical analysis of mainstream health psychology by drawing on newer approaches such as discourse, narrative, postmodernism and material discursive analysis. In this way, the largely decontextualized, individualist and cognitively-orientated field of health psychology is brought up to pace with critical developments in other areas such as social psychology. These theoretical ideas provide the basis of the book's main thesis: that contemporary health psychology needs to be rethought. After presenting an overview of the different theories and methods associated with mainstream and newer approaches within health psychology, the application of these approaches is logically and critically pursued across a range of substantive areas. These include: 'risky' health-related behaviours such as eating, alcohol and drug use, exercise and sex; health promotion related to these 'risky' behaviours; living and coping with chronic illnesses; mental health and illness; communicating and relating with health professionals; and living with dying. Finally, this book locates the growing popularity of health psychology within the contemporary social and political context, particularly in relation to recent changes in the way health care is organized and the commodification and commercialization of health and lifestyles.