Disability & Society

ISSN: 0968-7599 (Print) 1360-0508 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cdso20

From mental illness to a social model of madness

and distress

Ann-Charlott Timander

To cite this article: Ann-Charlott Timander (2017): From mental illness to a social model of
madness and distress, Disability & Society, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2017.1309145

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1309145

Published online: 02 Apr 2017.

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Download by: [Universidad Evangelica de El Salvador] Date: 05 April 2017, At: 05:42
Disability & Society, 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1309145

BOOK REVIEW

From mental illness to a social model of madness and distress, by Peter

Beresford, Rebecca Perring, Mary Nettle, and Jan Wallcraft, London, Shaping Our
Lives, 2016, 72 pp., ISBN 978-1-90-649804-7, http://www.shapingourlives.org.uk/
resources/our-resources/all-publications/from-mental-illness

The report From Mental Illness to a Social Model of Madness and Distress, written by survivor
researchers Beresford, Perring, Nettle and Wallcraft, focuses on mental health service users/
survivors views on mental distress/mental health, and how the service users/survivors
feel mental distress/mental health issues are understood in society (United Kingdom).
Furthermore, the report also wants to determine how more social understandings of men-
tal distress/mental health might be taken forward. The report is based on a second-stage
project, founded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in which a very wide range of mental
health service users/survivors have been included. A total of more than 80 people took
part through discussions, individual interviews, and an online survey. The project, like its
predecessor, adopted a user-controlled/survivor research approach. The reports six sections
explore mental health service users/survivors views on: a medical model of mental health,
reclaiming the term madness, the social model of disability as applied to mental health,
the idea and policy of recovery, social approaches to mental health, and taking forward
social approaches to mental health. All of the six sections draw heavily on the comments
of service users/survivors who took part in the project, in keeping with the authors com-
mitment to highlight the first-hand views and experience of service users themselves. The
findings in the report were that most of the service users/survivors felt that the public and
professionals understood mental health issues/mental distress through an individualizing
medical model, and the service users saw it as stigmatizing and damaging. Furthermore,
the report also established that the participants in this project were divided about the use
of terms like Mad and Madness, and there was again (as in the first report) a strong lack of
agreement amongst the service users/survivors about the social model of disability. There
were particular objections from some of the participants to the idea of having an impair-
ment. But at the same time many service users/survivors felt the model could facilitate links
with the broader disabled peoples movement. In addition, many participants had mixed
views on whether recovery was helpful for service users/survivors, because they felt that
the idea about recovery had been colonialized by a narrowly framed government policy.
Above that, most of the participants in the project felt that social approaches to mental
health were the most helpful. However, the service users/survivors were reluctant to impose
monolithic interpretations on their feelings, thoughts, and experiences, and wished to
take account of both personal and social issues. Lastly, the service users/survivors offered
many ideas for how social approaches to mental health/mental distress could be taken
forward. By, for example, incorporating social models and ideas in professional training,
education, practice, policy, research, and media, or by service users/survivors having more
opportunities to get together, sharing their ideas and experience, gaining confidence in
their views, and building links with potential allies.
2 BOOK REVIEW

This report is an important contribution to the knowledge in the area of disability stud-
ies, and Mad studies, and to research and activism in both fields. I especially find the empha-
sis on service users/survivors first-hand experiences and thoughts about issues in the field
of mental health/mental distress of particular relevance and importance for us working
in disability studies and Mad studies, and wanting to change society and (dismantle) the
mental health system. This short and accessible report can be used, for example, by service
users/survivors themselves, researchers, and students in the field of disability studies and
Mad studies, and in mental health in general, and social work. Furthermore, this report is
a must read for professionals working in the mental health system and policy-makers in
the field of mental health, and for politicians.
However, what I find troublesome is how the social model/models of disability was/were
explained/framed to the participants in this project. There are different ways of interpreting
the social model/models of disability. It is important to see the social model of disability as
an evolving, dynamic concept and one has to include the important revisions and additions
made by scholars and activists in disability studies; for example, Thomas (1999, 2007, 2010).
Thomas theorization of disability, impairment effects and impairment and their interplay
(1999, 2007, 2010) and especially her theorization of impairment as biosocial in its concep-
tion and not a fixed entity, and to be understood to be those variations in the structure,
function and workings of bodies which, in Western culture, are medically defined as significant
abnormalities or pathologies (Thomas 1999, 8) is important and should be acknowledged.
This understanding of impairment as biosocial and not fixed, and partly socially constructed,
and as variations of bodies and minds, and where we should celebrate difference, is a radically
different take with regard to the early writings/understandings by disability studies scholars
and activists, which the authors of this report are using when discussing the social model
of disability and impairment with the participants in this particular project. What would the
answers have been from the participants if the authors/researchers had, for example, used
Thomas theoretization of disability in their questions about the social model/models of disa-
bility? Would the service users/survivors to a greater degree embrace the social model/models
of disability? Furthermore, his theoretization lacked a clearer and greater discussion around
issues about intersectionality in relation to mental health issues/mental distress. People from
black and minority ethnic communities are mentioned in the report, but that is it when it
comes to more intersectional perspectives. However, the authors acknowledge that there
were limitations to the study because they were not able, for example, to include younger
individuals or people identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgender.

References
Thomas, C. 1999. Female Forms. Experiencing and Understanding Disability. Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK and
New York, USA: Open University Press.
Thomas, C. 2007. Sociologies of Disability and Illness.Contested Ideas in Disability Studies and Medical Sociology.
Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK and New York, USA: Palgrave McMillan.
Thomas, C. 2010. Medical Sociology and Disability Theory. In New Directions in the Sociology of Chronic and
Disabling Conditions. Assaults on the Lifeworld, edited by G. Scambler and S. Scambler, 3756. Basingstoke,
Hampshire, UK and New York, USA: Palgrave McMillan.

Ann-Charlott Timander
Department of Social Work, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden
Ann-Charlott.Timander@socwork.gu.se
2017 Ann-Charlott Timander
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1309145