Engaging with Transformative Paradigms in Mental Health.

Louise Whitaker,Fiona L Smith,Lisa Brophy,Catherine Brasier,Melissa Petrakis

doi:10.3390/ijerph18189504

Abstract

When graduates of Australian social work courses embark on a career in mental health, the systems they enter are complex, fragmented and evolving. Emerging practitioners will commonly be confronted by the loneliness, social exclusion, poverty and prejudice experienced by people living with mental distress; however, social work practice may not be focused on these factors. Instead, in accordance with the dominant biomedical perspective, symptom and risk management may predominate. Frustration with the limitations evident in this approach has seen the United Nations call for the transformation of mental health service delivery. Recognising paradigmatic influences on mental health social work may lead to a more considered enactment of person centred, recovery and rights-based approaches. This paper compares and contrasts influences of neo-liberalism, critical theory, human rights and post-structuralism on mental health social work practice. In preparing social work practitioners to recognise the influence of, and work more creatively with, intersecting paradigms, social work educators strive to foster a transformative approach to mental health practice that straddles discourses.

Highlights

Poor mental health outcomes globally continue to be unacceptable and, in this context, the United Nations Human Rights Council has called for a transformative paradigm because: Published: 9 September 2021
As mental health social workers who teach in this field, and consistent with the mandate of the profession, the authors of this paper came together to explore the place of social work education in preparing future practitioners in fully realising the profession’s potential to be engaged in system and practice transformation [23,24,25,26]
Global and local mental health service delivery appears to be on the cusp of major reform that is in alliance with social work theory and values [2,6,60]

Summary

Introduction

Poor mental health outcomes globally continue to be unacceptable and, in this context, the United Nations Human Rights Council has called for a transformative paradigm because: Published: 9 September 2021. The field of mental health continues to be over-medicalised and the reductionist biomedical model, with support from psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry, dominates clinical practice, policy, research agendas, medical education and investment in mental health around the world. The United Nations Special Rapporteur has recommended a shift to a rights-based approach that directly addresses the power imbalance in mental health policies and services [2] due to concerns about colonising practices and the political nature of mental health care [3,4,5,6]. In particular critical mental health social work, concurs.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion