Understanding Mental Distress: Knowledge, Practice and Neoliberal Reform in Community Mental Health Services

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.

Table of Contents:
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

About the Author :
Rich Moth is Lecturer in Social Work at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Review :
“This excellent volume is an important theoretically informed contribution that exposes the gap between the progressive narrative of community care, based on the recognition of individual rights as citizens and the current bureaucratic models of service provision.” Critical Social Policy “This book provides an important contribution to the debate about what mental health services should look like, who should provide them and how, and it should be required reading for those engaged in those debates in both academic and practice spheres.” Sociology of Health & Illness “This important book is a must read for mental health nurses and other practitioners who feel immense strain in their everyday work but can struggle to make meaningful sense of their predicament and, hence, identify what to do for the best.” International Journal of Mental Health Nursing "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