Abstract

The World Health Organisation recently confirmed that mental Illness was set to become the biggest threat to human well-being in the twenty first century. Mental illness accounts for more disability adjusted life years lost per year than any other health condition in the UK. No other health condition matches mental ill health in the combined extent of prevalence, persistence and breadth of impact.

Modern Mental Health offers an alternative and thought-provoking perspective to the conventional and orthodox understanding of mental health and how to help those suffering with mental illness. The individual contributors to this book share a passion for needs-informed person-centred care for those people affected by mental ill- health and a deep scepticism about the way help and support is organised and provided to the 1 in 4 people in the population who at some time will suffer mental health problems. The chapters include a diverse and rich mixture of stark personal testimony, reflective narrative, case studies in user-informed care, alternative models of intervention and support, rigorous empirical research and a forensic analysis of mental health law-making. Although the overarching philosophy of this book is critical of contemporary psychiatric care, each chapter offers an individual perspective on an aspect of provision.

This book will appeal to social workers in mental health contexts as well as students on post qualifying courses and the Masters Degree in Social Work. Doctors, psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors and nurses will also find much of value.

Joanna Fox is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Anglia Ruskin University. Joanna identifies herself as a person with lived experience of mental ill health. Her lived experience plays a major role in her research, teaching and writing. Her PhD focuses on the carers' contribution to mental health recovery in the service user with schizophrenia, which will be completed by Summer 2013. Joanna has worked extensively in developing support services for carers, in implementing and supporting service user and carer involvement in social work education and in PPI in health care. Areas of expertise include: the use of concept mapping in research and teaching , mental health caring, and recovery in mental health. She teaches mental health on the social work course at Anglia Ruskin University.

Professor Lena Robinson PhD is Professor of Social Work and Human Services at Central  Queensland  University, Australia. Previously she was Professor of Social Work at the University of the West of Scotland. She is an international scholar, who has delivered guest/public lectures and conference papers in India, South Africa, Ethiopia, Singapore, Indonesia, China, Australia, Canada and United States. She has also worked at the Universidade de Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique. Professor Robinson has published and researched widely in the field of race, ethnicity, cross-cultural psychology and social work practice. Her research interest is in the field of cross-cultural and cross-national research. It involves developing cross-cultural perspectives in psychology and social work. Her scholarship and international recognition in the area of race, diversity and social work practice is reflected in the invitation she received in 2001 from the Social Work Program at Central Connecticut State University, USA, to participate as a Fulbright scholar-in-residence. She has published several single authored books and has recently been requested to write a book on ‘International perspectives on mental health  issues and minority groups’.  She has published in refereed and professional journals and contributed chapters to major social work texts edited by leading academics in the field of social work theory and practice. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work  (from October 2003) and British Journal of Social Work (from January 2006-2010). She is currently involved in a number of research projects including an international study of mutual intercultural relations in plural societies and a study of suicide and parasuicide in India.

Keverne Smith was Course Director for BA Humanities at the University Centre, College of West Anglia, King's Lynn, from 2003 to 2011; this course was franchised from Anglia Ruskin University. His book, Shakespeare and Son: A Journey in Writing and Grieving, which examines the evidence that Shakespeare's later plays are affected by the loss in 1596 of his only son, Hamnet, appeared in 2011. He has also published articles on a variety of topics, including education ("School to University: Sunlit Steps, or Stumbling in the Dark?" and "School to University: An Investigation into the Experience of First-year Students of English at British Universities"), religious history ("To Sing or to Say: Dirges, Cymbeline, and the Reformers"), and studies of loss ("Tangled Up in Grief: Bob Dylan's Songs of Separation"). His special interest is in interdisciplinary studies, especially involving Social History, Literature, Education and Psychology.

Dr James Truemanis a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at Anglia Ruskin University, where he is the course leader for the Approved Mental Heath Professional training programme, and theme leader for mental health law. Outside of his legal interests, a significant amount of his time is currently dedicated to leading and supporting the implementation of technology in education. His background is as a mental health nurse, with experience of working in both the NHS and private sector. His research interests include mental health legislation, professional, media and political discourse, and the history of medicine - commonly viewed through the theoretical lens of critical discourse analysis.

Heather Castillo worked for many years in Mind Organisations in Essex, developing Advocacy for adults with mental health problems.  She was also instrumental in setting up one of the first advocacy projects in the country for children and adolescents with mental health problems.  She has worked with adult Service Users, training and supporting them to become legitimate researchers in the mental health arena and her work with them regarding the personality disorder diagnosis was published as a book entitled Personality Disorder, Temperament or Trauma?   Eight years ago she helped to set up, and became the Chief Executive of The Haven Project which is a Department of Health National Innovation Site for the support and treatment of personality disorder.  She has published a chapter in The Art and Science of Mental Health Nursing, Second Edition entitled The Person with a Personality Disorder Open University Press.  In 2011 she completed a doctorate about the process of recovery in personality disorder, a study that has begun to create a synthesis of human development and recovery theory, which is new and important for people with a personality disorder diagnosis. What is unique about this study is that the significances of the recovery journey in personality disorder have been defined by service users.

Steven Walker trained as a social worker at the London School of Economics and Political Science with a MSc. He qualified as a Systemic Psychotherapist in 1991 after studying at the Tavistock Clinic and the Institute for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice, London. He recently completed his MPhil in Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Steven has worked extensively for the past 30 years with children and families in the context of child protection and child and adolescent mental health. He has authored or co-authored Ten books- the latest being Walker, S. (2012) Effective Social Work with Children and Families- putting systems theory into practice, London, Sage, he has presented his research at many National and International Conferences- the latest at the 2012 European Conference for Dramatherapy and Psychotherapy on the subject of Fidel Castro's Childhood. Steven currently works for a charity offering a Counselling service for troubled young people.

R.D. Hinshelwood is Professor in the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, and previously Clinical Director, The Cassel Hospital, London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He spent many years working in therapeutic communities, and writing about them, including the book What Happens in Groups (1987); and he founded the International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, in 1980. He has authored A Dictionary of Kleinian Thought (1989) and other books and articles on Kleinian psychoanalysis. Observing Organisations (2000) was edited with Wilhelm Skogstad and is among a number of texts on psychoanalytic applications to social science. In 2004, he published Suffering Insanity, a book on schizophrenia in psychiatric institutions. He founded the British Journal of Psychotherapy, and Psychoanalysis and History. Currently he is completing Research on the Couch: Single Case Studies, Subjectivity and Psychoanalytic Knowledge to be published 2013; and a jointly edited book, with Nuno Torres, called Bion's Sources: The Shaping of his Paradigms (2013).

Tim French was until recently a Senior Lecturer in Mental Heath in the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Anglia Ruskin University. He has had extensive experience working for the National Health Service in England as a Community Psychiatric Nurse and has spent time caring for people within in-patient settings. He is completing a Masters Degree within the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex on the subject of Jungian Psychoanalytic theory and practice and is currently working for a Mental Health Trust in Eastern England.

Emma Kaminskiy is a Ph.D student within the faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Anglia Ruskin University. Her research is exploring collaborative psychiatric medication management. She holds a MSc in Organisational Psychology from City University, London and has research interests in the areas of innovation,  collaboration and mental health.

Nicola Morant is an applied social psychologist working in the field of mental health. She is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, and an honorary Research Associate in the Research Department of Mental Health Sciences at University College London. She also works in a freelance capacity as a qualitative research collaborator on a number of mixed methods NHS-based research projects. These cover various areas of mental health including acute and crisis care, psychiatric medication management, supported work environments, early intervention services and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. 

Shula Ramon is emeritus professor of interprofessional health and social studies at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and Professor of mental health research at the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield. A social worker and clinical psychologist by her training, she has researched mental health extensively and internationally, focusing recently on recovery issues, systematically involving service users in her research projects. Her recent publication is: Ryan, P., Ramon, S., Greacen, T. (2012) Empowerment, Lifelong Learning and Recovery in Mental Health: Towards a new paradigm. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 

Hannah Walker was brought up on the Isle of Wight, where she also went to school.  She was Head Girl and Captain of Sports, and won a place at Warwick University to read Philosophy and Logic.  Reality intervened and she was commissioned into the RAF as a Personnel Officer.  She won the Sash of Merit at Officer Training for being the most outstanding cadet and went on to serve in Germany, Gibraltar and various UK stations.  Promoted to Squadron Leader at the age of 29, Hannah ended up at the Ministry of Defence in London, working in the Central Operations Staff. Hannah had the first of many breakdowns in London and was eventually diagnosed as being bipolar.  She was unceremoniously chucked out of the RAF, got married and retrained as a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist.  She did most of a degree in Applied Psychology and Computing before her head blew up again and she separated from her husband.  Undaunted, she went to work in an acute psychiatric ward, where she managed to remain for 6 years, before being chucked out after yet another breakdown. She is the Chair of the Dorset Mental Health Forum, a pan Dorset charity which exists to improve the lives of service users in the county.

Hannah is the co-editor of the book “Our Encounters with Madness”, published by PCCS Books, which is becoming a set text for nursing students.  She hopes psychiatrists might read it as well.