Service user involvement and the restrictive sense of psychiatric categories

TY - JOUR

T1 - Service user involvement and the restrictive sense of psychiatric categories

T2 - the challenge facing mental health nurses

AU - Roberts, Marc

PY - 2010/5

Y1 - 2010/5

N2 - The active involvement of those people who have at one time used, or who continue to use, mental health services has come to be seen as a central feature of both the policy and the practice of modern mental health care. However, while those people who use mental health services may face a variety of obstacles to active participation in their care and in the provision of mental health services more generally, this paper will draw on the work of Gilles Deleuze, arguably one of the most important philosophers of the late 20th century, to suggest that the language of psychiatry – and, in particular, the attendant valuations or ‘sense’ of psychiatry's diagnostic categories – serve to restrict the participation of people in their individual care and in the provision of mental health services. Accordingly, it will be suggested that the challenge, as well as the opportunity, that confronts mental health nurses is to facilitate greater, more active user participation by practising in a manner that elicits the resources, capabilities and potential that service users possess, thereby challenging the prevailing and restrictive sense of the diagnostic categories by which people are identified, and by which they come to identify themselves.

AB - The active involvement of those people who have at one time used, or who continue to use, mental health services has come to be seen as a central feature of both the policy and the practice of modern mental health care. However, while those people who use mental health services may face a variety of obstacles to active participation in their care and in the provision of mental health services more generally, this paper will draw on the work of Gilles Deleuze, arguably one of the most important philosophers of the late 20th century, to suggest that the language of psychiatry – and, in particular, the attendant valuations or ‘sense’ of psychiatry's diagnostic categories – serve to restrict the participation of people in their individual care and in the provision of mental health services. Accordingly, it will be suggested that the challenge, as well as the opportunity, that confronts mental health nurses is to facilitate greater, more active user participation by practising in a manner that elicits the resources, capabilities and potential that service users possess, thereby challenging the prevailing and restrictive sense of the diagnostic categories by which people are identified, and by which they come to identify themselves.

U2 - 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2009.01508.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2009.01508.x

M3 - Article

VL - 17

SP - 289

EP - 294

JO - Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing

JF - Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing

SN - 1351-0126

IS - 4

ER -