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Understanding Mental Distress
Knowledge, Practice and Neoliberal Reform in Community Mental Health Services
By Rich Moth
Published
May 17, 2022Page count
264 pagesISBN
978-1447349877Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
May 17, 2022Page count
264 pagesISBN
978-1447349907Dimensions
Imprint
Policy Press
Understanding Mental Distress
In this timely analysis, Rich Moth assesses mental health services in a period of major change.
Based on extended fieldwork in community mental health services, he explores the many impacts of policy reform, marketisation and austerity on NHS mental health provision, and positions developments in the contexts of neoliberalism and an increased emphasis on individual responsibility.
Firmly rooted in the lived experiences of people using mental health services and the everyday practices of social workers, nurses and psychiatrists, he develops a stimulating perspective on how mental distress is understood and responded to within these settings.
"A rich, theoretically informed account of what is currently shaping practice in our mental health services. A key text for those concerned with understanding, challenging and transforming these services to benefit those who use them and those who work in them." Ann Davis, University of Birmingham
“Putting both workers and service users at its heart, in this volume Rich Moth makes a compelling case that structural and ideological forces continue to limit the possibility of genuine mental health care … Highly recommended.” Helen Spandler, University of Central Lancashire and Editor, Asylum Magazine
Rich Moth is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Liverpool Hope University.
Introduction
Part 1: Socio-Historical Contexts of Policy and Practice
Chapter 1: Policy Responses to Mental Distress: From the Asylum to Neoliberal Services
Part 2: Lived Experiences of Neoliberal Reform
Chapter 2: The Transition from Relational to Informational Practice
Chapter 3: Time, Trust and Relational Practice
Chapter 4: Risk and Responsibilisation
Chapter 5: Defining Mental Distress
Chapter 6: Punitive Managerialism Under Austerity
Chapter 7: Shifting Contours of Managerial Control
Part 3: Theorising Knowledge and Practice
Chapter 8: Temporality and Situational Logics in the Labour Process
Chapter 9: Biomedical Residualism and its Discontents
Conclusion
