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Mad Studies and Social Work: conceptualising the subjectivities of service user/survivors that experience significant mental health problems

Macdonald, Stephen J, Charnock, Anne and Scutt, Jane (2018) Mad Studies and Social Work: conceptualising the subjectivities of service user/survivors that experience significant mental health problems. Social work and social sciences review, 19 (3). pp. 98-118. ISSN 1746-6105

Item Type: Article

Abstract

This article draws on contemporary and classical psycho–political theorists to conceptualise ‘mental illness’ as a social construct. The research employs a Mad Studies and anti-psychiatry perspective to reframe ‘mental illness’ from an individualised pathological defect to a socially constructed reality (Foucault, 1967; Menzies et al., 2013). The study applies a qualitative biographical methodology to analyse the subjectivities of people with severe mental health problems, their family members and mental health practitioners. In this study, once individuals were conceptualised as pathologically ‘ill’ they were then medicated and often institutionalised as a form of ‘treatment’. The findings present a theoretical analysis of participants’ subjectivities to examine historic and contemporary psychiatric practices. The article will conclude by discussing how Mad Studies can offer social work practice an alternative theoretical standpoint to conceptualise ‘mental illness’ as a social rather than a pathological phenomenon.

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More Information

Depositing User: Stephen Macdonald

Identifiers

Item ID: 9940
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1921/swssr.v19i3.1193
ISSN: 1746-6105
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/9940
Official URL: https://journals.whitingbirch.net/index.php/SWSSR/...

Users with ORCIDS

ORCID for Stephen J Macdonald: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4409-9535

Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 05 Sep 2018 14:00
Last Modified: 24 Feb 2021 14:15

Contributors

Author: Stephen J Macdonald ORCID iD
Author: Anne Charnock
Author: Jane Scutt

University Divisions

Faculty of Education and Society
Faculty of Education and Society > School of Social Sciences

Subjects

Social Sciences > Criminology
Social Sciences > Health and Social Care
Social Sciences > Sociology

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