Book Review: Good Practice in Adult Mental Health
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200600010 |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| Pages | 40-41 |
| Author | Marie Finn |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Book Review
Good Practice in Adult Mental Health
Tony Ryan and Jacki Pritchard (Eds)
London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers, 2004
ome grassroots mental health
practitioners have been expressing concern of late
about the tack being taken currently within
community mental health teams. The emphasis on
outcomes, coupled with increasing caseloads and
paperwork, seems to have pushed issues such as anti-
oppressive and anti-discriminatorypractice and
service-user and carer involvement somewhat onto the
back foot. I have also had my own concerns about
whether evidence-based practice, despite its benefits
for clients, might favour individual therapeutic work to
the extent of excluding morequalitatively evidenced
interventions that aresocially systemic or user or carer-
led.
For these reasons, it was a pleasure and a
reassurance to find a practice guide that places at its
heartacommitment to a ‘values-based practice’ (page
26) that makes explicit a respect for service users and
their differing values, communities and systems. Piers
Allott sets this out in his chapter on ‘Mental health,
illness and recovery’, which starts the book, allying it
to recoverymodels and social systems interventions.
This chapter identifies the impact of poverty, cultural
assumptions and oppression on whether people are
mentally healthy or not. The tone is set of a user-
centred rather than a professionals-know-all approach
to service delivery and these core values appear to be
respected and at times reinforced by the other
contributors throughout the book.
The book aims to cover a wide range of issues
within the field of mental health. Particularly strong
contributions come from Carey Bamber in her chapter
on the history and development of the service-user
movement and from Ruth Ingrams exploring the
protection of mental health service users from abuse.
It was also inspiring to see the chapter on gender
addressing men’sissues, an area somewhat neglected
Sin some practice manuals which tend to focus
exclusively on women’s oppression within social
structures and health care systems.
Iwas interested to read the chapter on multi-
disciplinary working given the debates I referred to
above about perceived conflicting priorities within
service provision. Karen Newbigging’s thorough
exploration of the structural issues of multi-
disciplinaryCMHTsreminds us of their value, not
least due to the ‘cross-fertilisation of ideas between
disciplines’ (page 147). She is also realistic about the
tensions between generic working and specific
professional practice, especially if not all disciplines
within a team arefully signed up to a ‘shared
philosophy’ (page 159). She identifies increased
workload among other external barriers to practitioners
fully contributing to the ongoing team-building
process. She does not look at what CMHTs should be
prioritising but gives helpful insights into what
hinders the process.
This book does address issues that are of concern
to practitioners at the moment and, even better,
generally makes practical suggestions about what may
be a helpful intervention. Thereis a chapter on
interventions but in addition some other contributors
make reference to projects set up around the country
that aretrying to meet a specific need or to solve a
problem. Therearecreative examples drawn from
both the statutory and the voluntary sector, including a
few user-led initiatives. One example is the discussion
of the needs of refugees and asylum seekers in the
chapter on black and ethnic minority mental health.
The section is followed by a case study,discussion
points and also an example of a pilot scheme which is
aiming to facilitate communication between these
clients and health services.
Books areworth recommending if they are
interesting or useful and this one is both. A strength of
the book is the use made throughout of good practice
40 The Mental Health Review Volume 11 Issue 1 March 2006 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2006
To continue reading
Request your trial