Postpsychiatry
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Description
'Postpsychiatry' shows how recent developments in philosophy and ethics can help us to clarify some of the dilemmas and conflicts around different understandings of madness. Throughout, the authors examine the conflicting ways in which politicians, academics, and mental health professionals appear to understand madness, and contrast this with voices and experiences that are usually excluded - those of the people who use mental health services. Drawing on evidence from service users and survivors, the humanities and anthropology, it points out a brave new direction for mental health practice.Features
- Explains some of the major difficulties in mental health practice, helping the reader understand some of the background tensions in clinical work
- Uses short stories to help readers to consider complex philosophical issues from a fresh perspective, inviting them to question commonly held assumptions about the nature of psychosis and distress
- Places current debates about mental health policy and practice into their historical and cultural contexts
About the Author(s)
Patrick Bracken is a graduate of the National University of Ireland who did his early medical and psychiatric training in Southern Ireland. In the years 1987-1991 he worked for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture in Uganda and subsequently worked for the Medical Foundation in London. His M.D. degree was awarded for research with a rural village in the notorious 'Luwero Triangle' of Uganda. His interest in the psychological effects of violence has continued and he has carried out a number of consultancies for Save The Children in West Africa and most recently with refugees from Bhutan living in Nepal. Philip Thomas is a writer and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Citizenship and Community Mental Health, in the School of Health Studies, University of Bradford. Until recently he was consultant psychiatrist with Bradford's Assertive Outreach Team, and had worked as a full time consultant for over 20 years in the NHS, in Manchester, North Wales and Bradford. His academic interests include critical social and cultural psychiatry and philosophy. He is also interested in narrative and the problems of representation in medicine and literature. He has developed alliances with survivors of psychiatry and service users, locally, nationally and internationally. He is well-known for his academic and clinical work on the experience of hearing voices, arguing that these, and other experiences of psychosis, are understandable in the context of the person's life story and current life circumstances.
