Location and Stigma: Contemporary Perspectives on Mental Health and Mental Health Care

Reflecting recent trends towards interdisciplinary and multilevel analyses of mental health and mental health care, this volume provides a cross-section of research into an increasingly important part of socio-medical studies. Mental illness and handicap are widespread in developed countries, and are coming to be recognized as major health problems especially in the wake of substantial progress in eliminating the many severely disabling of fatal diseases prevalent in pre-industrial and industrial rimes. Although medical resources are currently concentrated on the chronic and degenerative diseases, there is a growing awareness that mental illness and related disorders generate enormous economic costs and have a devastating impact on the lives of many more people than are formally registered under care.
The overall level of mental health within a population is a result of the interactions between many factors. These can be viewed as four clusters: individual effects, environmental effects, the characteristics of the service delivery system, and the macro-effects of the prevailing social/economic/political system. The multiplicity of linkages between these clusters precludes dealing with each of them separately, so this book is organized into four parts. Fart I attempts to put the treatment of mental illness into its historical and political context, adding a geographical-cultural dimension. Part ll examines the etiology of mental illness, focusing on the social, environmental and economic factors involved. Part III deals with recent policies in the UK and the USA. Part IV evaluates the current status of mental health policy and speculates on its future.
All social scientists concerned with mental health and mental illness will welcome this volume as a substantial contribution to a newly emerging field of interdisciplinary enquiry.