| In Recovery: The Making of Mental Health Policy Contributor(s): Jacobson, Nora (Author) |
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ISBN: 0826514553 ISBN-13: 9780826514554 Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press OUR PRICE: $39.55 Product Type: Paperback Published: July 2004 Annotation: Is "recovery" from mental illness a complete abatement of symptoms? Or something less? Who benefits by the different definitions? An experienced practitioner and policymaker explores these issues and reveals how mental health policy is made and implemented. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Psychology | Mental Health - Medical | Mental Health - Medical | Health Policy |
| Dewey: 362.220 |
| LCCN: 2003025103 |
| Physical Information: 0.59" H x 6.1" W x 8.94" (0.83 lbs) 208 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Midwest - Geographic Orientation - Wisconsin |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: For hundreds of years, people diagnosed with mental illness were thought to be hopeless cases, destined to suffer inevitable deterioration. Beginning in the early 1990s, however, providers and policymakers in mental health systems came to promote recovery as their goal. But what does recovery truly mean? For example, to consumers of mental health services, it implies empowerment and greater resources dedicated to healing; to HMOs, it can suggest a means of cost savings when benefits cease upon recovery. This book considers recovery from multiple angles. Traditionally, Nora Jacobson notes, recovery was defined as symptom abatement or a return to a normal state of health, but as activists, mental health professionals, and policymakers sought to develop recovery-oriented systems, other meanings emerged. Jacobson's analysis describes the complexes of ideas that have defined recovery in various contexts over time. The first meaning, recovery-as-evidence, involves the theories, statistics, therapies, legislation, and myriad other factors that constituted the first one hundred years of mental health services provision in the United States. Recovery-as-experience brought the voices of patients into the conversation, while recovery-as-ideology drew on both recovery-as-evidence and recovery-as-experience to rally support for specific approaches and service-delivery models. This in turn became the basis for recovery-as-policy, which developed as assorted representative bodies, such as commissions and task forces, planned reforms of the mental health system. Finally, recovery-as-politics emerged as reformers confronted harsh economic realities and entrenched ideas about evidence, experience, and ideology. Throughout, Jacobson draws on her research in Wisconsin, a state with a long history of innovation in mental health services. Her study there included several years of fieldwork and interviews with the government-appointed groups charged with making recovery policy. Thus, In Recovery also provides an inside account of the process of policy development and implementation. |
Contributor Bio(s): Jacobson, Nora: - Nora Jacobson is the author of Cleavage: Technology, Controversy, and the Ironies of the Man-Made Breast. She works as a scientist for the Health Systems Research and Consulting Unit at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and is an assistant professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto. |