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Destigmatising Mental Illness? Professional Politics and Public Education in Britain, 1870-1970

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Vicky Long

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Abstract

Challenging the assumption that the stigma attached to mental illness stems from public ignorance and irresponsible media coverage, this book examines mental healthcare workers’ efforts to educate the public in Britain between 1870 and 1970. It covers a period which saw the polarisation of madness and sanity give way to a belief that mental health and illness formed a continuum, and in which segregative care within the asylum began to be displaced by the policy of community care. The book argues that the representations of mental illness conveyed by psychiatrists, nurses and social workers were by-products of professional aspirations, economic motivations and perceptions of the public, sensitive to shifting social and political currents. Sharing the stigma of their patients, many healthcare workers sought to enhance the prestige of psychiatry by emphasising its ability to cure acute and minor mental disorder. However, this strategy exacerbated the stigma attached to severe and enduring mental health problems. Indeed, healthcare workers occasionally fuelled the stereotype of the violent, chronically-ill male patient in an attempt to protect their own interests. Drawing on service users’ observations, the book contends that current campaigns, which conflate diverse experiences under the label mental illness, risk trivialising the difficulties facing people who live with severe and enduring mental disturbance, and fail to address the political, economic and social factors which fuel discrimination.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Long V

Publication type: Authored Book

Publication status: Published

Series Title: Disability History

Year: 2014

Number of Pages: 272

Print publication date: 01/07/2014

Acceptance date: 01/01/2013

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Place Published: Manchester, UK

Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item

ISBN: 9780719085819


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