A History of Male Psychological Disorders in Britain, 1945-1980


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY license and explores the under-researched history of male mental illness from the mid-twentieth century. It argues that statistics suggesting women have been more vulnerable to depression and anxiety are misleading since they underplay a host of alternative presentations of 'distress' more common in men.




Stress in Post-War Britain


Book Description

In the years following World War II the health and well-being of the nation was of primary concern to the British government. The essays in this collection examine the relationship between health and stress in post-war Britain through a series of carefully connected case studies.




Preventing Mental Illness


Book Description

This book provides an overview of a diverse array of preventive strategies relating to mental illness, and identifies their achievements and shortcomings. The chapters in this collection illustrate how researchers, clinicians and policy makers drew inspiration from divergent fields of knowledge and practice: from eugenics, genetics and medication to mental hygiene, child guidance, social welfare, public health and education; from risk management to radical and social psychiatry, architectural design and environmental psychology. It highlights the shifting patterns of biological, social and psychodynamic models, while adopting a gender perspective and considering professional developments as well as changing social and legal contexts, including deinstitutionalisation and social movements. Through vigorous research, the contributors demonstrate that preventive approaches to mental health have a long history, and point to the conclusion that it might well be possible to learn from such historical attempts. The book also explores which of these approaches are worth considering in future and which are best confined to the past. Within this context, the book aims at stoking and informing debate and conversation about how to prevent mental illness and improve mental health in the years to come. Chapters 3, 10, and 12 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com




Men and masculinities in modern Britain


Book Description

Men and masculinities provides an engaging, accessible and provocative introduction to histories of masculinity for all readers interested in contemporary gender politics. The book offers a critical overview of ongoing historiographical debates and the historical making of men’s lives and identities and ideas of masculinity between the 1890s and the present day. In setting out a new agenda for the field, it makes an ambitious argument for the importance of writing histories which are present-centred and politically engaged. This means that the book engages head-on with ferocious debates about men’s social position and the status of masculinity in contemporary public life. In establishing a critical genealogy for the proliferation of this crisis talk, it sets out new ways of understanding how men’s lives and ideas of masculinity have changed over time while patriarchy and male power have persisted.




The Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health


Book Description

This Handbook represents the first concerted effort to understand male mental health in a way that facilitates a positive step forward in both theory and treatment. An alarming number of men experience serious mental health issues, as demonstrated by high rates of suicide and violent offending. Despite these problems, the study of male psychology has either been overlooked, or viewed as a problem of defective masculinity. This handbook brings together experts from across the world to discuss men’s mental health, from prenatal development, through childhood, adolescence, and fatherhood. Men and masculinity are explored from multiple perspectives including evolutionary, cross-cultural, cognitive, biological, developmental, and existential viewpoints, with a focus on practical suggestions and demonstrations of successful clinical work with men. Throughout, chapters question existing models of understanding and treating men’s mental health and explore new approaches, theories and interventions. This definitive handbook encapsulates a new wave of positive theory and practice in the field of male psychology and will be of great value to professionals, academics, and those working with males through the lifespan in any sector related to male mental health and wellbeing.




A History of Self-Harm in Britain


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY license and charts the rise and fall of various self-harming behaviours in twentieth-century Britain. It puts self-cutting and overdosing into historical perspective, linking them to the huge changes that occur in mental and physical healthcare, social work and wider politics.




Social Class and Mental Illness in Northern Europe


Book Description

This book examines the relationship between social class and mental illness in Northern Europe during the 20th century. Contributors explore the socioeconomic status of mental patients, the possible influence of social class on the diagnoses and treatment they received in psychiatric institutions, and how social class affected the ways in which the problems of minorities, children and various ‘deviants’ and ‘misfits’ were evaluated and managed by mental health professionals. The basic message of the book is that, even in developing welfare states founded on social equality, social class has been a significant factor that has affected mental health in many different ways – and still does.




Explaining Mental Illness


Book Description

How can sociology explain the emergence of mental disorders in societies or individuals? This authoritative book makes a case for the renewal of the sociology of mental illness, proposing a reorganisation of this field around four areas: social stratification, stress, labelling and culture. Drawing on case studies from a range of global contexts, the book argues that current research focuses on identifying ‘social factors’, leaving the question of causality to psychiatry, while significant critical perspectives remain untapped. The result is an unprecedented resource that maps the current state of sociology of mental health, providing an invigorating manifesto for its future.




An Education in Sexuality and Sociality


Book Description

While hook-up culture on university campuses represents a part of the story, it is only part of the story. It is important to add to this and investigate the way the university itself brokers and seeks out specific forms of sexuality, sex, and connection amongst students. This booksheds light on how the university as an institution endorses certain forms of sociality, sexuality, and coupling, while excluding others. Building on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this book furthers the discussion on the impact these institutional measures have on students, and how students work through and around them – while simultaneously establishing relations outside of and beyond hooking-up.




Richard Titmuss


Book Description

This is the first full-length biography of Richard Titmuss, a pioneer of social policy research and an influential figure in Britain’s post-war welfare debates. Drawing on his own papers, publications, and interviews with those who knew him, the book discusses Titmuss’s ideas, particularly those around the principles of altruism and social solidarity, as well as his role in policy and academic networks at home and overseas. It is an enlightening portrait of a man who deepened our understanding of social problems as well as the policies that respond most effectively to them.