Research Handbook on Society and Mental Health

This engaging Research Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of research on social factors and mental health, examining how important it is to consider the social context in which mental health issues develop. It illustrates how social factors contribute to problems with mental health and how society, in turn, responds to people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders.

Expert contributors provide an in-depth review of the history of social factors and mental health, and also discuss how boundaries between disorders such as bipolar and borderline personality disorder can be blurred and contested. Past and current social factors are thoroughly reviewed such as refugee mental health, stressors linked to discrimination based on race, gender or sexual orientation, exposure to police violence and the impact of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges and stigma faced by those diagnosed with disorders, alongside prejudices and discrimination in the health care system are also examined.

The Research Handbook on Society and Mental Health will be an excellent resource for scholars studying social issues in relation to mental health or illness and researchers wishing to take an interdisciplinary approach by studying biopsychosocial factors. Mental health providers interested in well-rounded learning and those people experiencing and living with mental illness will find the alternative viewpoints to mainstream psychiatry and psychology informative and illuminating.