Mental health in an age of celebrity: the courage to care

Abstract

Modern psychiatry, which once focused only on the containment and "cure" of madness, has evolved into a mental health industry, where almost every aspect of human life, may be cast as a "mental disorder". In Western countries, a narcissistic appetite for self-improvement and "well-being" has evolved over the past 50 years, mirroring the emergence of the celebrity culture. These developments appear linked to a fading of interest in the traditional concept of human caring, leading to a further marginalisation of people with serious "mental health problems" and to increased use of authoritarian forms of control and containment. In this paper, the idea of vocation in the field of mental health is explored. What exactly are we called to do as people-whether as professionals, friends or fellow travellers-when someone experiences a significant problem in human living?

A Comparison of the Nursing Practice Environment in Mental Health and Medical‐Surgical Settings

“…One potential reason for this is the lack of readily identifiable activities in mental health nursing that may be influenced by the work environment (Forchuk, 1996; Tummers, Houkes, Janssen, & Landeweerd, 2001). Indeed, although a wide range of mental health nursing activities may be found in the literature (Cleary, 2004; Deacon, 2003; Mullen, 2009), the focus remains on the therapeutic relationship, a concept that in nursing has proven to be difficult to define and measure (Barker & Buchanan‐Barker, 2008; Forchuk). Further, in general nursing, patient outcomes have been clearly defined and linked to nurse activities (Needleman et al, 2002).…”

Thoughts for 2012

“…Thus there is the need to have a genuine desire to help and make a human response. Barker and Buchanan-Barker (2008) summed this up far more succinctly that I can when they said: 'Perhaps our human purpose is no more or less than that of providing warmth, companionship and acceptance of our fellow women and men, rather than trying to fix them'.…”

Challenges in mental health nursing: current opinion

“…They reported that many found answering the questions difficult and the descriptions that were offered were often "jargon-ridden summaries of eminent theorists". 24 In addition, most respondents did not distinguish between "psychiatric" and "mental health" nursing. Such a finding begged the question of how can we expect to recruit professionals into the field if we cannot define what it is that we do and who we are.…”