This comprehensive volume offers a whole new practice framework that helps to make sense of people's mental distress and recovery in relation to their social experience. The book presents a wide range of views of the social and political dimensions of mental health and distress, taking into account social environment, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and biopsychological and social models. Adopting a user-focused, holistic approach to mental health practice, the contributors argue, is vital to better reflect the needs and aspirations of service users and complements traditional biomedical, psychological and practical social work perspectives. Drawing on the expertise of contributors from academic, policy and practice settings as well as lived experience, this book is essential reading for practitioners and students in the fields of mental health and social work.
Foreword, Judy Foster, Social Perspectives Network. Introduction, Jerry Tew, University of Central England. 1. Core Themes of Social Perspectives, Jerry Tew. 2. Social Approaches to Madness and Distress: User Perspectives and User Knowledges, Peter Beresford, Brunel University and Chair of Shaping our Lives. 3. Beyond Biomedical Models: A perspective from critical psychiatry, Duncan Double, Consultant psychiatrist, Hellesdon Hospital, Norwich. 4. Power Relations, Social Order and Mental Distress, Jerry Tew. 5. Social Capital and Mental Health, Martin Webber, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London. 6.The Social/Trauma Model Mapping the Mental Health Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse and Similar Experiences, Sally Plumb, Mental Health Training Group, West Midlands. 7. Finding a Way Forward: A Black Perspective on Social Approaches to Mental Health, Peter Ferns, Independent Consultant. 8. Women's Mental Health: Taking Inequality into Account, Jennie Williams, Independent Consultant. 9. 'The Sickness Label Infected Everything we Said': Lesbian and Gay Perspectives on Mental Distress, Sarah Carr, Social Care Institute for Excellence. 10. Approaches to Risk in Mental Health: A Multidisciplinary Discourse, Shulamit Ramon, Anglia Polytechnic University. 11. Recovery from Mental Breakdown, Jan Wallcraft, Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health and fellow for Experts by Experience, National Institute for Mental Health in England. 12. Social Perspectives: Towards a Framework for Practice, Jerry Tew. Contributors. Subject Index. Author Index.
A brilliantly succinct and readable summary that brings together models and evidence from sociology, psychology, social psychiatry, service user networks and the disability and minority rights movements into a coherent whole. I guarantee you's be hooked.
