Person-centered Mental Health Research Articles

Person-centred mental health care: myth or reality?

While the concept of a mental health service based on users’ needs is widely understood, it rarely exists in practice. Fred Ruddick describes how it can become a reality

Promotion of Well-Being in Person-Centered Mental Health Care.

An understanding of the mechanisms of personality development provides a systematic way to promote health as an integrated state of physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being. Individual differences in personality are causal antecedents of the full range of psychopathology. The maturation with integration of personality appears to be an important mechanism by which diverse modalities of treatment promote wellness and reduce illness. First, the authors review the relationship between personality and a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Second, the authors evaluate the impact of character structure on a wide range of measures of well-being, including positive emotions, negative emotions, life satisfaction, perceived social support, and perceived health. Third, the authors describe a practical and inexpensive clinical method for facilitating the maturation and integration of personality based on an understanding of the processes of human thought, which underlie changes in personality and well-being.

The tidal model: the lived‐experience in person‐centred mental health nursing care

Abstract Nursing theories and nursing models have a low profile within psychiatric and mental health nursing within the United Kingdom. This paper considers some of the historical, policy and rhetorical issues that may have framed nursing's relative dependency on the medical paradigm, and briefly considers some of the ethical challenges, which proposed ‘extensions’ of the nurse's role might have for a ‘caring’ discipline.The paper describes the philosophical background of the Tidal Model, which emerged from a series of studies of the ‘need for psychiatric nursing’. The Tidal Model extends and develops some of the traditional assumptions concerning the centrality of interpersonal relations within nursing practice, emphasizing in particular the importance of perceived meanings within the lived‐experience of the person‐in‐care and the role of the narrative in the development of person‐centred care plans. The model also integrates discrete processes for re‐empowering the person who is in mental distress, and provides a practical template for the exploration of the spiritual dimensions of the person's lived‐experience, if appropriate.

Disclosure of minor mental health problems: an exploratory theoretical study.

The aim of this study was to explore people's experiences, concerns and beliefs about disclosing minor mental health problems by focusing on the ways in which such disclosures are interpreted. Approximately half of people with mental health problems do not seek help. The decision to consult represents just one aspect of the process of revealing one's illness to others. People with mental health problems are known to be reluctant to reveal the existence of those problems through fear of how others might then view them. A qualitative approach was employed. In-depth interviews were carried out with 47 users and nonusers of community mental health services. Interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed and analysed. The data suggest that when people reveal minor mental health problems others interpret these in relation to a number of perceived contextual factors. These include perceptions of the severity and duration of any possible causes, the inner 'strength' of the person, the expected ability of the person to either solve or suppress the experience, and the form and context of the expression itself. The data presented included individuals who were seeking help for relatively 'minor' mental health problems (primarily depression and anxiety) and individuals who had no current mental health problems but routinely managed expressions of their own emotions. Throughout the data there appeared to be no distinct difference between these two groups other than one of the severity of psychological experience. The key elements involved in the interpretation of people's expressions of sadness were essentially the same as those involved in the interpretation of expressions of depression. An appreciation of these contextual factors influencing the interpretation and disclosure of minor mental health problems may aid the development of more person-centred mental health services and inform the content of health education in the mental health field.