[...]... to re-orientate services in a way that is both empowering to service users and embraces much more of a social perspective 12 SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES IN MENTAL HEALTH Finally, in Chapter 12, I draw together some of the key strands that have emerged from the preceding chapters, and look at how to start putting social perspectives into practice SPN (2003) Start Making Sense… Developing Social Models to Understand. .. Understand and Work with Mental Distress London: Social Perspectives Network CHAPTER 1 Core Themes of Social Perspectives Jerry Tew Over recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the social aspects of mental health, both in terms of seeking to understand what may contribute to mental distress, and what forms of support and intervention may be most helpful in assisting people to reclaim... beginning to challenge dominant medicalised understandings of distress, and draws parallels with the disability movement’s campaign to redefine disability from a social perspective Duncan Double gives an insider perspective on competing models and traditions of practice within psychiatry in Chapter 3, showing how more INTRODUCTION 11 holistic and socially oriented models have played, and continue to. .. Psychiatry and the Future of Mental Health Services Ross on Wye: PCCS Books 30 SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES IN MENTAL HEALTH Karban, K (2003) Social work education and mental health in a changing world.’ Social Work Education 22, 2, 191–202 Laing, R (1965) The Divided Self Harmondsworth: Penguin Langan, J and Lindow, V (2004) Living with Risk: Mental Health Service User Involvement in Risk Assessment and Management... the social model of disability to mental health · mental health user networks – understanding ‘symptoms’ as having meaning, and valuing people’s own strategies for resolving or managing their distress · recovery movement – proposing that recovery is more about claiming (or reclaiming) a socially valued lifestyle than becoming ‘symptom-free’ However, although there may be a groundswell of interest in social. .. important role within the development of practice In Chapter 4, I explore aspects of social theory which may be relevant to developing social understandings of mental distress – in particular, frameworks for understanding how both distress itself, and social responses to it, may be shaped by the operation of power relations This may be at the micro-scale of interpersonal interactions, and also in terms of... findings (Social Perspectives Network, 2004) Such a social perspectives approach may be seen as explicitly emancipatory in its purpose, aiming to support a practice of working together that enables people to recover a meaningful degree of control over their lives, live in greater safety and participate more fully within social, economic and community life Finally, any social perspective should be informed... or intrusiveness of their distress, or has given them greater capacity to live with it And their social participation may, in smaller or greater measure, also have some influence on redefining the narrow and exclusionary nature of what may be seen as ‘normal’ or mainstream 20 SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES IN MENTAL HEALTH Rethinking mental distress from a social perspective Social models explore the ways in. .. instigating 26 SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES IN MENTAL HEALTH a potentially vicious circle of increasing victimisation, powerlessness and distress Over time, people may lose their social and family networks and become either socially isolated or ghettoised within mental health services And continual subjection to negative stereotyping may lead to shifts in identity, with a loss or distortion of any positively valued... is to be treated, leading to a potential marginalisation of family and friends, an approach which locates distress in its social context should seek to include all significant others as part of the ‘action system’ working towards recovery This would suggest an important role in supporting the renegotiation or rebuilding of social and family networks (or in establishing new ones), and in seeking to . Making Sense… Developing Social Models to Understand and Work with Mental Distress. London: Social Perspectives Network. 12 SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES IN MENTAL. Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Social perspectives in mental health : developing social models to understand and work with mental distress / edited