Solutions forgone? How health professionals frame the problem of postnatal depression

Abstract

Our interest is in how particular solutions in postnatal depression have a tendency to be adopted at the expense of alternative solutions. One aspect of the answer may lie in how people in positions of authority think about problems. ‘Framing’ refers to the way particular causalities, consequences and moralities are contained within the ways in which people communicate concepts, in particular in language and in metaphor. Naming the way problems are framed and identifying alternative frames, (i.e., ‘reframing’) may provide an opportunity to set problems more effectively and to identify solutions that will solve the problem more effectively. A framing analysis was conducted, drawing on interviews with senior researchers, policy makers and practitioners in the field of postnatal depression. Seven principal ways in which the problem of postnatal depression was framed were illuminated. These fitted into three broad approaches to the problem: individual therapeutic approaches, social competence approaches and societal approaches. Participants in our study were comfortable and articulate in describing the problem of postnatal depression—whether they were focused on the individual or societal levels of analysis. However, they were less well versed and comfortable in discussing what they felt might be important social or societal-level solutions, lacking in both language and schema to do so. The history and hierarchy that is carried by people from the helping professions may be hindering new avenues to help mothers with new babies.