Relocating Madness: From the Mental Patient to the Person - Softcover

Barham, Peter; Hayward, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853433071 ISBN 13: 9781853433078

Publisher: Free Assn Books, 1995

Synopsis

Not surprisingly, the policy of closing mental hospitals and relocating mental patients in the community has generated great controversy. The aim of contemporary mental health policy has been to enable people who have had a severe mental illness to lead relatively independent lives in the community, rather than be contained permanently in large mental asylums. Close the asylums, it was thought, and many of the problems of chronic mental disorder would vanish.
Reality has dashed many hopes. Despite numerous expert proclamations, rather little is known about how the beneficiaries of the new policies perceive their good fortune. This book reports on the complexities and ironies involved here, directly from the front line. The relocation of madness is explored as a process that involves the creation and negotiation of new frames of understanding, and new styles of relationship, between former mental patients and 'normal' society.
Partly, this is a story of dismal inadequacies in service provision, of blighted lives and mordant ironies. Yet it is also a narrative of hope, of the struggles of members of a social group to recover their dignity and be permitted to join in society. The authors stress the need for open dialogue between people with mental illness and the wider society. For this new edition they contribute an epilogue in which they expand on their discussion and take account of recent alarms and developments.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Hayward is Assistant Programme Director of the Hamlet Trust.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Assn Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1853433071
• ISBN 13: 9781853433078
• Binding: Paperback