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Mental Health Community (mental + health_community)
Selected AbstractsWork, Identity, and Stigma Management in an Italian Mental Health CommunityANTHROPOLOGY OF WORK REVIEW, Issue 1 2006Sara M. Bergstresser Abstract When mental illness prevents an individual from working, the economic burden is obvious, but little attention has been paid to the accompanying loss of social identity. This paper addresses the meanings of work and unemployment for participants in an Italian community mental health center, and it evaluates the role of work therapy in an agricultural setting as a way to regain some social aspects of work or professional identity. The study is based on over a year of anthropological fieldwork in the Province of Bergamo, Northern Italy, conducted to investigate the relationship between community-based mental health care, social stigma of mental illness, and the social sphere in everyday life. The social position of the individual at the time of job loss is significant in his or her professional expectations while in the community center. Those who had previously worked in manual or farming capacities found this type of work therapy to be a helpful means of social participation. On the other hand, expectations based on educational, social, and economic hierarchies persist for individuals within mental health communities. For those individuals with high education, manual labor violated professional expectations, and the reality of their employability provided a conflict between social participation and perceived status group. The stigma of unemployment is also addressed in relation to political identity and desire for worker status. [source] Interrogating power: the case of arts and mental health in community projectsJOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2007Rebecca Lawthom Abstract In this paper, we use the multi-dimensional model of power to interrogate arts and mental health community based projects. Using data retrospectively gathered during a series of participative evaluations, we re-analyse the data focusing on the ways in which power is located and negotiated across levels of analysis and multiple ecological domains. Evidence from the evaluations is richly presented illustrating power at the micro, meso and macro level. Whilst the model offers a rich reading of power, it is difficult to operationalize historically. Moreover, the static nature of the model fails to adequately capture the multiplicity of sometimes polar positions adopted. Engaging in a particular framework of community psychology, we argue that this project may be seen as part of a wider prefigurative action research agenda. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] DSM-III and the revolution in the classification of mental illnessJOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, Issue 3 2005Rick Mayes A revolution occurred within the psychiatric profession in the early 1980s that rapidly transformed the theory and practice of mental health in the United States. In a very short period of time, mental illnesses were transformed from broad, etiologically defined entities that were continuous with normality to symptom-based, categorical diseases. The third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) was responsible for this change. The paradigm shift in mental health diagnosis in the DSM-III was neither a product of growing scientific knowledge nor of increasing medicalization. Instead, its symptom-based diagnoses reflect a growing standardization of psychiatric diagnoses. This standardization was the product of many factors, including: (1) professional politics within the mental health community, (2) increased government involvement in mental health research and policymaking, (3) mounting pressure on psychiatrists from health insurers to demonstrate the effectiveness of their practices, and (4) the necessity of pharmaceutical companies to market their products to treat specific diseases. This article endeavors to explain the origins of DSM-III, the political struggles that generated it, and its long-term consequences for clinical diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in the United States. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] | ||||||||||