From Psychiatric Patient To Citizen

This book proposes theoretical models and practical strategies for tackling the widespread social exclusion faced by people diagnosed mentally ill. Based primarily on research in the US and UK but with reference to other international examples, it analyses evidence of discrimination and the effectiveness of different remedies: disability discrimination law, work to re-frame media and cultural images, grassroots inclusion programmes, challenges to the 'nimby' factor. It places the growing user/survivor and disability movements as central to achieving any radical change.

Combatting mental health stigma and discrimination has moved from a radical idea in the 1990s to mainstream policy today. However, there are huge questions about how to do it effectively, and the journey to get equal life chances is still a long one. As part of the Foundations of Mental Health Practice series, this book explores these important questions and considers the solutions. It pulls together ground-breaking examples and the latest research evidence to argue for a compelling new theory and agenda for social change to promote equality and citizenship. Accessibly written, it demonstrates how mental health practitioners of all disciplines can stand alongside individuals with lived experience and their organisations to challenge discrimination and participate in all aspects of the community. It also addresses the role of families, friends and those with a policy, campaigning or legal interest. Completely up to date, it draws on new research and interviews, as well as the author's 30 years of experience working in the field. With chapter summaries, further reading and reflective exercises, this book offers support for research and practice, making it an essential and important read for any student or practitioner in the field who advocates equality, and for people with lived experience, families, friends and campaigners.

This text proposes new theoretical and practical solutions for tackling the widespread social exclusion faced by people diagnosed mentally ill. Based on research in the US and UK, it analyzes evidence of discrimination and different remedies.

Combatting mental health stigma and discrimination has moved from a radical idea in the 1990s to mainstream policy today. However, there are huge questions about how to do it effectively, and the journey to get equal life chances is still a long one. As part of the Foundations of Mental Health Practice series, this book explores these important questions and considers the solutions. It pulls together ground-breaking examples and the latest research evidence to argue for a compelling new theory and agenda for social change to promote equality and citizenship. Accessibly written, it demonstrates how mental health practitioners of all disciplines can stand alongside individuals with lived experience and their organisations to challenge discrimination and participate in all aspects of the community. It also addresses the role of families, friends and those with a policy, campaigning or legal interest. Completely up to date, it draws on new research and interviews, as well as the author's 30 years of experience working in the field. With chapter summaries, further reading and reflective exercises, this book offers support for research and practice, making it an essential and important read for any student or practitioner in the field who advocates equality, and for people with lived experience, families, friends and campaigners.

More than 50 years ago, President Kennedy gave an address to Congress that launched the community mental health movement in the U.S. This movement involved a vast and complex effort to replace the wholesale institutionalization of people with serious mental illnesses with community mental health centers, public education on mental illness, and prevention efforts. The mission and main thrust of this new movement, however, were quite simple: we would provide effective mental health treatment to people in their home communities and provide the conditions for them to have 'a life in the community.' Starting in the 1990s with Jim, a person who was homeless and initially refused help from outreach workers, Citizenship & Mental Health tells a 20-year story of practice, theory, and research to support the full participation of persons with mental illnesses who, in many cases, have also been homeless, have criminal charges in their past, and are poor. As the first of its kind, this book addresses the concept of citizenship as an applied theory for fulfilling the promise of the community mental health center movement. Citizenship is defined as a strong connection to the 5 R's of rights, responsibilities, roles, resources, and relationships that society offers to its members, and a sense of belonging that comes from others' recognition of one's valued membership in society. The citizenship model supports the strengths, hopes, and aspirations of people with mental illnesses to become neighbors, community members, and citizens.

A philosopher who has experienced psychosis argues that recovery requires regaining agency and autonomy within a therapeutic relationship based on mutual trust. In Mental Patient, philosopher Abigail Gosselin uses her personal experiences with psychosis and the process of recovery to explore often overlooked psychiatric ethics. For many people who struggle with psychosis, she argues, psychosis impairs agency and autonomy. She shows how clinicians can help psychiatric patients regain agency and autonomy through a positive therapeutic relationship characterized by mutual trust. Patients, she says, need to take an active role in regaining their agency and autonomy—specifically, by giving testimony, constructing a narrative of their experience to instill meaning, making choices about treatment, and deciding to show up and participate in life activities. Gosselin examines how psychotic experience is medicalized and describes what it is like to be a patient receiving mental health care treatment. In addition to mutual trust, she says, a productive therapeutic relationship requires the clinician’s empathetic understanding of the patient’s experiences and perspective. She also explains why psychotic patients sometimes feel ambivalent about recovery and struggle to stay committed to it. The psychiatric ethics issues she examines include the development of epistemic agency and credibility, epistemic justice, the use of coercion, therapeutic alliance, the significance of choice, and the taking of responsibility. Mental Patient differs from straightforward memoirs of psychiatric illness in that it analyses philosophic issues related to psychosis and recovery, and it differs from other books on psychiatric ethics in that its analyses are drawn from the author’s first-person experiences as a mental patient.

As the momentum for personalisation and recovery approaches grows, service users are increasingly participating as partners in all aspects of health and social care delivery, policy-making and professional training. This book provides an overview of service user involvement in mental health, its origins and current practice and policy. Written cooperatively by service users and academics, this book conveys a vital connection between recovery and involvement, offering a framework of values and helpful strategies to promote meaningful user participation. By sharing their personal narratives and contributing their views, service user authors demonstrate how taking control of their own care facilitates a swifter and more satisfying recovery. The book further acknowledges the bilateral value of user involvement in the development of mental health services, student learning, collaborative research and challenging social stigma, providing examples and critical appraisal of how this is currently being implemented. With a strong, positive emphasis on the benefits to all stakeholders, Service User Involvement and Recovery in Mental Health offers guidelines for good practice that will be relevant to health and social care practitioners, service users, students, researchers and educators.