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Discourses of consumption or consumed by discourse? A consideration of what "consumer" means to the service user
- Author:
- SPEED E.
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Mental Health, 16(3), June 2007, pp.307-318.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- London
This article considers discourses of consumption, in a mental health context, from data collected in the Republic of Ireland. Drawing on typifications of western welfare regimes, it will consider processes of commodification and consumption. The purpose of this paper is to explore the political connotations of the consumer discourse and to focus attention on the implications of utilizing discourse(s) of consumption for service users. Data were generated through interviews with ten mental health service users who were members of mental health social movement organizations. This was analysed using a discourse-analytic technique. The analysis considers consumer discourse(s) and delimits the utility of this way of talking about being a service user. The impacts and inferences of using a consumer discourse are identified. Under some conditions it can be a positive event for the healthcare consumer, but the discourse tends to favour the healthcare professional and/or the state, in that it implicitly reasserts the primacy of the medical model. The consumer discourse is a complex construct that speaks to and for both the state and the service user. However, use of this discourse carries political and therapeutic connotations for the service user. The political connotations relate to the consumer discourse as a feature of a state sanctioned re-positioning of healthcare provision within a more explicitly market based context. The therapeutic connotations relate to a lack of genuine alternative explanatory systems to that of the medical model and an often implicit championing of medical discourses as evidenced in the consumer discourse.
The Irish Mental Health Act 2001
- Author:
- KELLY Brendan D.
- Journal article citation:
- Psychiatric Bulletin, 31(1), January 2007, pp.21-24.
- Publisher:
- Royal College of Psychiatrists
The Mental Health Act 2001 is chiefly concerned with two aspects of psychiatric services in Ireland: (a) involuntary detention of persons with mental disorder in approved psychiatric centres; (b) mechanisms for assuring standards of mental healthcare. The Act is divided into six parts: preliminary and general; involuntary admission of persons to approved centres; independent review of detention; consent to treatment; approved centres; miscellaneous.