Culture & Society – A New Vision for Mental Health

The Postmodern Assumptions of the Biopsychosocial Approach

Author: Editorial 8th March 2024 0 Comments

“If PM [postmodernism] is accepted, there are two options: nothing is true-nihilism; or anything can be true-eclecticism.” This commentary by Dr. S. Nassir Ghaemi has been published in Psychiatric Times. It begins: “I appreciate my friend Dr Ron Pies’ thoughtful essay,1 Can We Salvage the Biopsychosocial Model? A Reformulated Biopsychosocial Paradigm Can Be Clinically Useful…
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a coherent system

academic psychiatry, biopsychosocial model, Culture & Society, George Engel, postmodernism, Psychiatric Times, Ronald Pies, Roy Grinker, S. Nassir Ghaemi

Psychiatry overwhelmed by referrals for ‘normal emotions’

Author: Editorial 2nd January 2024 0 Comments

Helen McArdle reports for The Herald newspaper: “Acute mental health services are becoming overwhelmed by referrals for people with ‘normal negative human emotions’”‘ who may actually be harmed by treatment, a leading psychiatrist has said. In an interview with the Herald Dr…
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a coherent system

Culture & Society, Emotion, Helen McArdle, Joanna Bredski, psychiatry, Scotland, The Herald

Transforming Mental Health Care with Cultural Narratives and Metaphors

Author: Editorial 29th November 2023 0 Comments

“In an influential paper, Laurence Kirmayer explores how cultural narratives and metaphors shape our experience of mental health and recovery.“ This article by Justin Karter has been published in Mad in America. It begins: “In a groundbreaking academic article, Laurence J. Kirmayer , a…
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Uncategorised

cultural poetics, cultural psychiatry, Culture & Society, Justin Karter, Laurence Kirmayer, Mad in America, metaphor, narrative

UN community does not endorse biomedical psychiatry

Author: Editorial 13th October 2023 0 Comments

This blog-post from Duncan Double has been published by Relational Psychiatry. It begins: “I’ve mentioned before reports produced by professor Dainius Pūras, when he was Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of…
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a coherent system

biomedical model, Culture & Society, Dainius Pūras, Duncan Double, OHCHR, Relational Psychiatry, UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, United Nations

A Peek Inside the Modern Asylum

Author: Editorial 2nd October 2023 0 Comments

This article by Dr. Ekaterina Netchitailova has been published by Mad in America. It begins: “The psychiatric hospital of today might appear as a foreign, scary object to the mind who has never visited the institution. It represents the unknown, the…
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a coherent system

academic psychiatry, asylums, Culture & Society, Ekaterina Netchitailova, Mad in America, madness

How This Jungian Life Made Carl Jung Cool Again

Author: Editorial 15th September 2023 0 Comments

This article by Louis Cheslaw has been published in Vulture. It begins: “For Matthew Quick, the author of Silver Linings Playbook, 2020 was the third year of a crippling writer’s block. Long runs near his home, in the woods of North Carolina’s…
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a wellbeing society

Carl Jung, Culture & Society, Deborah Stewart, Joseph Lee, Lisa Marchiano, Louise Cheslaw, Matthew Quick, podcast, psychoanalysis, This Jungian Life, Vulture

‘If I were you I wouldn’t start from here’: Working for real change in societal responses to distress

Author: Editorial 9th June 2023 0 Comments

This article (written for a magazine for systemic family therapists) by David Harper has been published in Context Magazine. It “considers the following questions. Why do we have the kinds of mental health systems that we have? What positive changes have…
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a coherent system

Context Magazine, Culture & Society, David Harper, systemic family therapy

The History of Emotions: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Editorial 26th May 2023 0 Comments

This book has been written by Thomas Dixon. The publishers say: “Emotions are complex mental states that resist reduction. They are visceral reactions but also beliefs about the world. They are spontaneous outbursts but also culturally learned performances. They are intimate…
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emotion-focused care

books, Culture & Society, emotions, history, subjectivity, Thomas Dixon

Encounterism: the Neglected Joys of Being in Person

Author: Editorial 18th May 2023 0 Comments

This book by Andy Field will be published in July. The publishers say: “The light touch of a hairdresser’s hands on one’s scalp, the euphoric energy of a nightclub, huddling with strangers under a shelter in the rain, a spontaneous snowball…
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a wellbeing society

Andy Field, books, Culture & Society, loneliness, social isolation, wellbeing

Why have we stopped talking to strangers?

Author: Editorial 10th May 2023 0 Comments

“Efficient urban design, attention-grabbing screens and isolating headphones all mean we’re rapidly losing the art and joy of spontaneous encounters. But artist Andy Field has a plan for how we can start to connect again…” This report by Steve Chamberlain –…
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a wellbeing society

Andy Field, Culture & Society, encounterism, loneliness, Steve Chamberlain, The Guardian, urban design, wellbeing