Suchergebnisse

Overview of mental health issues --Is professional treatment necessar for mental health? --Should mental health professionals advocate for medication? --Can the stigma surrounding mental health be lifted? --Should annual mental health checkups be required?.

AbstractMental health has been a focus of over 200 journal articles using the HILDA Survey data. This brief review provides an overview of the mental health data collected through the HILDA Survey, and discusses the potential reasons why HILDA Survey data have been used so frequently in mental health research. We reflect on how the HILDA Survey data have: provided insights into the profile of mental health in the Australian community, illustrated the importance of social ties for mental health and enabled investigation of social inequalities in mental health.

A discussion of what is and what is not known in the relation between social values and personality points up the fact that 'except after the event, it is difficult to distinguish disorganization from reorganization.' The mental health movement was drawn into the power vacuum left by the passing dominance of the church. Its roots (starting in the industrial revolution) stem from the: (1) resultant focus of attention on the inner life; (2) emphasis and success in new methods of dealing with human problems; & (3) increased concern with mental health resulting from the existence of a movement directed to alleviate it. The mental health movement has remarkable parallels with the early Christian Church. It is increasingly called on to pronounce on moral questions but its approach to them differs profoundly from the church's, i.e., it is a 'mediator or interpreter of the scientific message rather than an opponent of it.' There is a latent schism within the movement in the differing positions as to ultimate values: (1) that mental hygienists are not concerned with ultimate values as such, functioning only at the means level; or (2) that it is the business of the hygienist to facilitate the search for ultimate values. The influence of the mental health movement on mental health is discussed with emphasis on the increased self-awareness of greater depth and accuracy which has resulted. It is suggested that the movement itself adopt this same self-consciousness with its attendant responsibility. D. Wolsk.

Financing is a critical factor in the implementation of a viable mental health system. This module provides guidance on how to assess current financing mechanisms for mental heath, maximise the resource base for mental health and make the best use of available funds to promote mental health reforms

In 2010, I began a PhD study to examine how professionals and patients talked to, and about, each other in mental health institutions in Denmark. One year later, I found myself chain-smoking, dressed in baggy clothing, and slouching on a sofa in a closed psychiatric ward. I had not myself been hospitalized, but to get inside the contemporary psychiatric institution and to participate in the social world of patients and professionals, I had to experiment with different ethnographic approaches. Ethnographies of mental health have become increasingly rare, and much research on language in psychiatric institutions is done by interview research. My study involved observing and participating in the day-to-day life at two mental health facilities: an outpatient clinic and an inpatient closed ward. The case study provides an account of some of the specific methodological problems and unanticipated events that emerged in the course of the study. It discusses the particular challenges involved in negotiating access in a hierarchical and conflict-ridden setting with tangible power differences between professionals and patients. I pay particular attention to the positions that became available to the researcher during the study, and I discuss different strategies of access. The case also contains some practical advice and lessons learned to consider for new researchers and students looking to do ethnographies in institutional settings.