Mental Health Uncertainty and Inevitability : Rejuvenating the Relationship Between Social Science and Psychiatry

This book offers original knowledge, debate, and understanding from frontline fieldwork data and the relations between mental health difficulties, mental healthcare provision, and social theory. Dominant discourse of the last half century has followed a medical perspective. This has marginalised contributions from social science. Furthermore purely medical approaches to mental healthcare have profound shortcomings. Thus, this book draws upon innovative research findings to rejuvenate the relationship between psychiatry and social science. It frames this by reference to certain inevitable and uncertain elements of mental health which characterise this field. Over nine chapters the volume is a unique contribution to several intersecting areas of intellectual enterprise, research, and learning — as well as a source of insight into how mental health practice and policy might be modified and improved. As a result, it appeals to a wide range of audiences including social scientists, mental health practitioners, mental health researchers, social theorists, mental health service users, and policy-makers. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Returning to the Fray: Revisiting What Social Science Can Offer Psychiatry ... and Vice Versa....Pages 1-20 A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Mental Health Assertive Outreach....Pages 21-45 The Role of Everyday Interaction Rituals Within Therapeutic Communities....Pages 47-72 The Dementia Experience: Sociological Observations on the Construction of Cognition in Care Homes....Pages 73-104 “The Will’s There and the Skill’s There”: Prison Mental Healthcare....Pages 105-136 Institutional and Emotion Work in Forensic Psychiatry: Detachment and Desensitisation....Pages 137-165 Community Mental Health Teams: Interacting Groups of Citizen-Agent?....Pages 167-198 Handling Role Boundaries: A Basic Social Process Underpinning Decision-Making in Mental Health Teams....Pages 199-220 Mental Health Uncertainty and Inevitability....Pages 221-234 Back Matter....Pages 235-242 This work offers original knowledge, debate, and understanding from frontline fieldwork data and the relations between mental health difficulties, mental healthcare provision, and social theory. Dominant discourse of the last half century has followed a medical perspective. This has marginalised contributions from social science. Furthermore purely medical approaches to mental healthcare have profound shortcomings. Thus, this book draws upon innovative research findings to rejuvenate the relationship between psychiatry and social science