Social Work

Mental Health Users

Introduction

The history of research in mental health social work (MHSW) is a developmental one, beginning with a very close association with clinical psychiatry, moving through a productive period of partnership with social psychiatry to the present day, entering into a phase of increasing independence and maturity. From an international perspective, this increasing independence is evident in many different places, from Australia to the USA. To attempt to encompass all of this development in a single chapter is barely possible and so we have chosen to focus our attention on some very specific aspects of MHSW research. (Kinderman,2000 ,Pp 307-310)

Before we learn more about this, we need to acknowledge that the social inquiry enterprise in psychological condition is very much multi-disciplinary one, and that many social scientists as well as social work academics and practitioners have made very valuable and influential contributions (see Huxley, 2001). Again, it is not possible to mention them all by name, but among the disciplines represented in these efforts, notable ones are health economics (such individuals as Richard Frank in the USA and Martin Knapp in the UK), social policy researchers, psychologists and sociologists (such as Leona Bachrach and Bill Eaton in the USA and Anne Rogers and David Pilgrim in the UK). These individuals and their social work collaborators draw from similar discourses, and are part of an empirical research tradition. Modern multidisciplinary research in mental health now includes service users - as advocated more than a decade ago by Rapp and colleagues (Rapp et al., 1993) - and leans towards an interest in recovery models and the use of participatory and emancipator research methods (as represented by the contributions of people like Marian Farkas in the USA and Peter Beresford in the UK). MHSW research plays a part in the development of new methods and measures and employs a very wide range of methods appropriate to the question being addressed. The works cited in this chapter reflect this considerable diversity of applications, which we consider to be a sign of academic rigor (Chandra,2009, Pp 202-232)

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Issues

The history of the relationship between social work and psychiatry is a long and sometimes troubled one, but always included an element of research and development, possibly because most of the early associations were between academic psychiatrists and social workers (or social scientists) in clinical teaching settings. In the UK one thinks of Hoenig and Hamilton (1969), Wing and Brown (1970), Goldberg and Huxley (1980, 1992), and in the USA of Stein and Test (1980), Hogarty and Anderson (1986) and Segal and Aviram (1978) among others.

These early research collaborations reflect the changing nature of both society and psychiatry during these years. In both the UK and the USA early research was into the harmful effects of institutions, and about ways to improve treatment and foster humane regimes, including the importance of work and similar activity within the confines of the institution (Norcross,2006 ,Pp 20-22).

The deinstitutionalization research in both countries turned attention towards the development of community treatment models ...