Not Just Talk: What a Psychosocial Primary Care Mental Health Service Can Do

Abstract

This descriptive study reports on the development of an inner-city, multi-disciplinary primary care mental health service which expanded its mainly problem-based casework approach to incorporate a well-being focus in the form of community development, health promotion, teaching and training. Work undertaken over one year (2006–2007) with a total of 762 service users is examined for the service population's profile and the range and type of direct work undertaken, with examples. Indirect work is outlined to illustrate the service's collaboration with other mainstream and third-sector agencies. Mutual learning across settings and disciplines was central to this mixed, psychosocial portfolio. The team's work reflected their perspective that mental disorder and mental health are embedded in community processes, and that policies and services which seek to remedy mental disorder by individualised therapies or risk management alone may fail to address the connectedness of service users' mental health with their material, social and personal environments.