Product Description

This new edition is completely revised and updated it uses the authors real-life examples to argue that the traditional way of treating mental illness can often exacerbate peoples problems.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131151 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'Essential reading for those involved, or with an interest in the mental health field' - Social Work Education

From the Back Cover
Users and Abusers of Psychiatry is a radically different, critical account of the day-to-day practice of psychiatry. Using real-life examples and her own experience as a clinical psychologist, Lucy Johnstone argues that the traditional way of treating mental illness can often exacerbate people's original difficulties leaving them powerless, disabled and distressed.
In this completely revised and updated second edition, she draws on a range of evidence to present a very different understanding of psychiatric breakdown than that found in standard medical textbooks.
Users and Abusers of Psychiatry is a challenging but ultimately inspiring read for all who are involved in mental health - whether as professionals, students, service users, relatives or interested lay people.

About the Author
Lucy Johnstone spent 11 years working in the NHS as a clinical psychologist before moving to her present post as Senior lecturer in clinical psychology & counselling at UWE, Bristol. She has published widely in the area of critical approaches to mental health.

Customer Reviews

A 'must-have' if you provide use or mental health services
This is a revised second-edition, and has a significant amount of new and updated material - enough to make it worth reading, even if you've read the original book. Unusually for a psychiatric text book, the author, has included plenty about the survivor movement, and about women's issues within psychiatry. It is well-written and jargon-free, and the style is more accessible to more readers than the first edition. It will appeal and possibly be challenging to anyone who has an interest in mental health issues, whether you are on the receiving or providing end of services, or if you are a campaigner or relative of someone who uses mental health services. The author has used extensive sources for her research, including her own. She has years of experience in mental health as an NHS Clinical Psychologist, and now lectures in related topics at the University of the West of England. The book covers a host of issues including the history of psychiatry and its influence, and it questions the status-quo and perceived wisdom of the medical model of looking at mental distress. Many treatments are covered in detail, with a refreshing look at contraversial treatments such as electric shock treatment and psychiatric drugs. Lucy persuasively dispells some of the common myths surrounding "the mentally ill" using both common sense and academic reasoning, and scientific study. As a result, the book makes fascinating reading, and throughout, the sincerity and compassion of the author towards those abused by psychiatry comes through. The author clearly and succinctly sets out common arguments used by psychiatry to justify its own position. However, for those with a vested interest in mainting the psychiatric system as it is, it will be thought-provoking and probably worrying!

And they said anti psychiatry was dead.
This is both an unraveling of the medical model of mental illness and an explnation of psycho social aproaches.

Takes over where RD left things!!