Week 2: Current Conceptualizations of Mental Health Flashcards
What happened in the 1960s (the beginning of dissent)?
A time of growing dissatisfaction with traditional mental health approaches and a desire for more patient-centered and less coercive models of care.
A significant shift in the conceptualization of mental health and psychiatric care in the 1960s. This shift was largely influenced by societal and cultural factors, particularly the critique of traditional mental health institutions.
A rare convergence of left and right-wing support for asylum closure.
A place where people are isolated from the wider society and subjected to strict control, such as a prison, mental hospital, or military barracks.
Total Institution
A place of refuge or protection, especially for people who are persecuted or homeless.
Asylum
Who said that, “Total institutions actually aggravated long-term difficulties”?
Erving Goffman (1922 - 1982)
Who argued that “mental illness was an 18th-century social construct” in Madness and Civilization?
Michael Foucault (1926 - 1984)
Who denied the very existence of mental illness?
Thomas Szasz (1920 - 2012)
Who conceptualized psychiatric patients as nonconformists in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?
Ken Kesey (1935 - 2001)
Who rejected medical psychiatry and encouraged greater attention to patients’ lived experiences?
R. D. Laing (1927 - 1989)
Is a term that refers to the unique personal experiences of an individual, particularly as they relate to their identity, social position, or circumstances.
It’s a way to understand how someone’s personal history, culture, and background shape their worldview and perspective.
Lived Experiences
Responsible for a large scale asylum closure in favor of community-based services.
Enoch Powell (Minister of Health)
What was the National Hospital Plan (1962) about?
- Psychiatry = core specialty of new district general hospitals
- Mental hospital provision halved
- Convergence with general medicine
- Therapeutic optimism
Location: Originally built outside North London.
Capacity: At its peak, it housed over 2,000 people.
Name Change: Renamed Friern Hospital in the 20th century.
Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum
History: Britain’s oldest psychiatric institution, founded in 1247.
Current Affiliation: Part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
Bethlem Royal Hospital
It is the process of moving individuals from long-term institutional care, such as mental hospitals, to community-based settings.
This shift aimed to provide more humane and integrated care for individuals with mental health conditions, as well as to reduce the reliance on large, institutional facilities.
Deinstitutionalization
What did the 1975 White Paper, ‘Better Services for the Mentally Ill’ by Barbara Castle cover?
- Shortcomings of the Hospital Plan
- Limited scope for progress
- Concerns over closure before community-based alternatives were available
Why was Peter Barham against deinstitutionalization?
- Inability of community care to deal with the vicissitudes of mental illness
- Failures increased the stigma and isolation experienced by recently-discharged patients
What happened in the Late 20th century?
- Growth of the service user movement
- Decarceration
- Community-based studies
-Patient-authored accounts - Activism
- Peer-review later spread to other locations and services assisted by INVOLVE
What were the two user-controlled research projects in the 1990s?
1) Strategies for Living, 2000 (People’s strategies for dealing with mental distress)
2) User-Focused Monitoring, 1998 (Peer evaluation of community and hospital services)
Marked the transition of user-led research into academia.
Emerged from the efforts of its first director, Professor Dame Til Wykes, to champion service user involvement in all aspects of research.
Creation of SURE in 2001
Conducts research that tests the effectiveness of services and treatments from the perspectives of people with mental health problems on their carers.
It is the largest academic department of its kind in the world.
Service User Research Enterprise (SURE)
The government-funded group assisted in spreading peer review to other locations and services.
INVOLVE
Prominent Groups in the Research Community
- SURE Search
- The McPin Foundation
- St. George’s, University of London
- Shaping Our Lives national User Network
- The Survivor’s History Group
Research group where members include users and survivors of mental health services.
SURE Search
Independent user-controlled group, think tank and network/
Works with . wide and diverse range of service users.
Shaping Our Lives National User Network
