Narratives of Mental Health

Following extensive research in the UK, Bruce Cohen allows mental health users to tell their own stories (or “narratives”) of illness and recovery. Institutional and home treatment care is covered alongside controversial self-coping techniques such as drug-taking, spiritualism, alternative healing, sleep and watching television. This book is the first volume allowing mental health users to speak to the professional community which offers to treat them and as such will be an important resource for professionals, students and practitioners in the mental health field.

BRUCE COHEN is a Research Fellow at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. He has previously researched mental health communities in Teesside and Bradford, publishing articles in the Psychiatric Bulletin and Science, Discourse and Mind. He has been awarded Research Scholarships to work in Australia and Germany, and is currently researching migrant youth in Berlin.

List of Tables * Preface * Acknowledgments * List of Acronyms * Introduction * Mental Illness and Psychiatry Narratives * Crisis Intervention and Home Treatment Methods * The User Narratives * Descent into Illness and Psychiatric Intervention * Recovery from Illness and Self-Coping * Conclusion * Appendices * Bibliography * Index