Mental Health User Narratives: New Perspectives on Illness and Recovery

ISBN-13: 9781137487506 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 211 str.

Bruce M. Z. Cohen

Opis

In Mental Health User Narratives, sociologist Bruce Cohen argues that the real experts on 'mental illness' - namely, service users - continue to be marginalised and silenced by health professionals. This book, now in paperback, attempts to redress that issue. Through extensive research with users in the UK, the author details user 'narratives' (or stories) which give insight into areas such as spiritualism, self-coping, self-recovery, alternative treatments, positive effects of illness, and future life paths. The research demonstrates a need to widen the therapeutic mind to include the mundane and everyday as additional foci for treatment. This book remains a rare example which allows mental health users to speak to the professional community that offers to treat them, and as such it is an important resource for mental health professionals as well as groups of users and carers. This paperback edition includes a new introduction from the author and a Foreword by the eminent social critic Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.

Recenzje

"Bruce Cohen offers innovative views about the value and impact of considering mental health services from users' perspectives." - British Journal of Psychology

"... very interesting, well researched and respectful of the service-user voice." - Psychiatric Bulletin

" an engaging critical study of the development and treatments of mental illnesses, which successfully demonstrates both the importance and relevance of social scientific approaches to the study of this area of medicine." - Medical Sociology Online

"In Mental Health User Narratives Cohen places the real experts on mental health problems centre stage. The subjective experience of people who use mental health services has been largely ignored, by researchers and clinicians, for as long as the 'medical model' has been dominant. This book provides a refreshing antidote to the bizarre notion that we can understand people's emotional pain by counting 'symptoms' and applying a diagnostic label. This is a must read for all involved in mental health services and research." -Professor John Read, University of Liverpool

Spis treści

List of Tables Preface Acknowledgments List of Acronyms Introduction Mental Illness and Psychiatry Narratives Crisis Intervention and Home Treatment Methods The User Narratives Descent into Illness and Psychiatric Intervention Recovery from Illness and Self-Coping Conclusion Appendices Bibliography Index

O autorze

BRUCE COHEN is a Research Fellow at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. He has previously researched mental health communities in Teesside and Bradford, publishing articles in the Psychiatric Bulletin and Science, Discourse and Mind. He has been awarded Research Scholarships to work in Australia and Germany, and is currently researching migrant youth in Berlin.