Writing as the editor of this website, I have recently had an article – New Vision for Mental Health: an Ecological Paradigm – published in the journal Self & Society.
The article describes the New Vision for Mental Health project and its underpinning ecological paradigm. It gives some examples of the many new and interesting approaches that have arisen across the field of mental health and well-being. It also looks at some of the challenging and stressful conditions faced by those working within the current system, and addresses two of its key ‘philosophical’ problems.
Here’s a sample extract from the article:
“… Why an ecological paradigm? Because ecology is the study of interrelationships – and when it comes to mental health and well-being, each person stands at the centre of a highly complex web of interrelationships. This web is complex because it spans both ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds, going well beyond the scope of purely biophysical or psychosocial models to also connect more specifically with emotional, cultural, evolutionary, economic, environmental (both human-built and natural-physical), psycho-developmental and existential/transpersonal/ spiritual factors.
And more: each person is themselves inherently complex, not least because the human mind/brain is perhaps the most complex phenomenon known …”
You can read the article from here, or download it as a pdf file from here.
