A sociology of mental health and illness? (2nd edition)

Mental Health Nursing,  Apr 2000  by Hannigan, Ben

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A sociology of mental heath and illness (2nd edition) David Pilgrim and Anne Rogers 1999 Open University Press, L16.99 ISBN 0 335 20347 7

Many mental health nurses will be familiar with the original 1993 version of this book. This swiftly became an excellent starting point for those interested in the social dimensions of mental health and illness.

In this new edition, the original format has been largely retained, with a number of important amendments. First, the authors have elevated their examination of class inequalities and mental health and illness to a new, dedicated, chapter. Second, every chapter in the book now begins with a brief, bullet-point overview, and ends with a series of questions, items for discussion and a suggested further reading list. This new way of concluding each chapter makes the book, I felt, much more of an explicit teaching tool than the first edition. The chapter titled "The organisation of psychiatry", for example, concludes with the question: "If you, or a friend or relative, had a long-term mental health problem how would you like services to be organised in response?" I can imagine this, and many of the questions which conclude other chapters, being successfully used by educators to trigger fruitful debate among students of any of the mental health professions.

Other amendments include the updating and expansion of material in each chapter. There are, for example, new sections on mental illness and "dangerousness", and on the position and role of service users. Overall, the scope of the book remains impressive, including, among other areas, sections relating to perspectives on mental health and illness, the organisation of mental health services, the mental health professions, and mental health and age.

Written in an analytic and lucid style, this revised book continues to act as an important reminder that "mental health" and "mental illness" exist as social as well as individual phenomena. This seems to me to be an important message, particularly at a time when biological and psychological perspectives on mental illness are in the ascendant. I therefore recommend this excellent text to practising mental health nurses, students and to educators.

Ben Hannigan

Copyright Community Psychiatric Nurses Association Apr 2000
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