Destigmatising mental illness?

Examines mental healthcare workers’ efforts to educate the public between 1870 and 1980

Examines mental healthcare workers’ efforts to educate the public between 1870 and 1970

This historical study of mental healthcare workers’ efforts to educate the public challenges the supposition that public prejudice generates the stigma of mental illness. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book argues that psychiatrists, nurses and social workers generated representations of mental illness which reflected their professional aspirations, economic motivations and perceptions of the public. Sharing in the stigma of their patients, healthcare workers sought to enhance the prestige of their professions by focussing upon the ability of psychiatry to effectively treat acute cases of mental disturbance. As a consequence, healthcare workers inadvertently reinforced the stigma attached to serious and enduring mental distress. This book makes a major contribution to the history of mental healthcare, and critiques current campaigns which seek to end mental health discrimination for failing to address the political, economic and social factors which fuel discrimination. It will appeal to academics, students, healthcare practitioners and service users.

Introduction1. Psychiatrists and their patients: mirrored narratives of sanity and madness2. Insecure professionals and the public3. Challenging the stigma of mental illness through new therapeutic approaches4. Mad, bad and dangerous to know? Men, women and mental illness5. ‘The personal touch’: voluntarism, the public and mental illness6. ‘The public must be wooed and enticed with entertainment and buns’: healthcare professionals and the BBCConclusionBrief timelineBibliographyIndex