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Mental illness
- Author:
- BUSFIELD Joan
- Publisher:
- Polity
- Publication year:
- 2011
- Pagination:
- 176p.
- Place of publication:
- Cambridge
Mental illness is a complex, controversial and contested field, informed by the ideas and research of academics and practitioners working in psychiatry, psychology, pharmacology, sociology, genetics and the neurosciences. This book aims to bring clarity; exploring core issues ranging from debates about the way the concept has been developed, transformed and expanded over time, to controversies over its causes. The author discusses the concept of mental illness, the way human distress and eccentricity has been labelled as mental disorder, and its expanding boundaries that now define a far wider range of mental states, experiences and activities as pathological. She examines some of the changes that have been made in official psychiatric classifications since the Second World War, arguing that these boundaries need to be restricted. The author contends that many of the phenomena identified as mental illness are normal reactions to life’s difficulties and that, while individuals may need support, it is not appropriate or helpful for such phenomena to be pathologised and treated as indicative of mental disorder. Other topics covered include the way mental illness is measured, its distribution across populations and over time, and the different types of care provided for those with identified mental illness.