Medicine Over Mind - Mental Health Practice in the Biomedical Era

In an era in which the medicalization of mental health troubles and treatment has been settled for several decades, little is known about how this biomedical framework affects practitioners’ experiences. This book explores how practitioners make sense of a field that has shifted rapidly in just a few decades.

List of contents

From meaning-making to medicalization

Practitioner portraits and pathways to practice

The promise of 'imperfect communication' and the 'prison' of rigid categorization : the DSM in practice

Etiological considerations and the tools of the trade : the role of medication and talk therapy in practice

The consequences of the biomedical model for practice and practitioners : psychodynamic therapy in a biomedical world

Conclusion : the dangling conversation : ambiguity in mental health practice

About the author

DENA T. SMITH is an assistant professor of sociology at The University of Maryland-Baltimore County where she teaches the sociology of mental health and illness, and medical sociology.
 

Summary

Using interviews with forty-three practitioners in the New York City area, this book offers insight into how the medical model maintains its dominant role in mental health treatment. Smith explores how practitioners grapple with available treatment models, and make sense of a field that has shifted rapidly in just a few decades.

Product details

• Authors: Dena T Smith, Dena T. Smith
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.09.2019
• EAN: 9780813598666
• ISBN: 978-0-8135-9866-6
• No. of pages: 230
• Series: Critical Issues in Health and; Critical Issues in Health and Medicine Series; Critical Issues in Health and Medicine
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > Non-clinical medicine; Non-fiction book > Psychology, esoterics, spirituality, anthroposophy > Applied psychology; Psychopharmakologie, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disease & Health Issues, Psychology, MEDICAL / Psychiatry / Psychopharmacology, PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / Counseling