Journeys through Mental Illness

This timely text provides a much needed account of mental health service clients’ perceptions and understandings of mental ill health.

Mental health problems, and the way we understand them, are a perennial source of fascination, but there is a surprising gap in the literature when it comes to mental health service clients’ own understandings of mental ill health. At a time when service users’ perspectives are increasingly recognised in healthcare, this seminal book highlights the importance of clients’ perceptions of all aspects of mental illness. It examines the implications of these understandings, especially in relation to clients’ relationships with services.

JULIET FOSTER is Research Fellow in Social Psychology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University. The research on which this book is partly based was awarded the BPS Social Psychology Section Annual Award for the Most Outstanding Thesis in Social Psychology, 2002.

Acknowledgements * Allowing Madness Vox * Perspectives from Psychology, Psychiatry and Other Disciplines * Perspectives from Clients Themselves and the User Movements * Defining Mental Health Problems By and Through Experience * The Journey Through Mental Illness * Labelled, Spoiled, Negotiated, Rejected: Identity and Mental Health * Representing Mental Ill Health * Conclusions and Implications * Appendix: Methods * References