Main description:

Mental health has long been perceived as a taboo subject in the UK, so much so that mental health services have been marginalised within health and social care. There is even more serious neglect of the specific issues faced by different ethnic minorities.

This book uses the rich narratives of the recovery journeys of Chinese mental health service users in the UK - a perceived 'hard-to-reach group' and largely invisible in mental health literature - to illustrate the myriad ways that social inequalities such as class, ethnicity and gender contribute to service users' distress and mental ill-health, as well as shape their subsequent recovery journeys.

Recovery, Mental Health and Inequality contributes to the debate about the implementation of 'recovery approach' in mental health services and demonstrates the importance of tackling structural inequalities in facilitating meaningful recovery. This timely book would benefit practitioners and students in various fields, such as nurses, social workers and mental health postgraduate trainees.

Contents:

Chapter 1. What recovery? Whose recovery? Recovery as a disputed approach

Chapter 2. Exploring social inequalities with the Capabilities Approach and Intersectionality Analysis

Chapter 3. When things start to fall apart: social conditions and the loss of capabilities

Chapter 4. Becoming a psychiatric patient

Chapter 5. Life after shipwreck: social conditions for capabilities (re)development

Chapter 6. Stubbornly strive to be human: meanings of recovery, hope and adaptive preferences

Chapter 7. Social conditions for recovery: Towards a social justice agenda

Methodological epilogue. Developing the service user knowledge of Chinese communities