Making the subjects of mental health care

A cross-cultural comparison of mental health policy in Hong Kong, China and New South Wales, Australia

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2249503
AutoresJialiang Cui (0000-0001-8708-1947, Centre for Social Research in Health UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia, autor correspondente), K Lancaster (0000-0002-2411-7970, Centre for Social Research in Health UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia), Christy E Newman (0000-0002-5482-2822, Centre for Social Research in Health UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia)
Ano2019
Volume41
Fascículo4
Páginas740-754
Data de publicação2019-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9566.12851
PMID30825224
OpenAlexW2920534863
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7
Referências citadas41

Constituting 'social problems' in particular ways has a range of effects, including for how subjects are positioned within policy and discourse. Employing an approach grounded in poststructuralist and social constructionist thinking, this analysis interrogates how the subjects of mental health care were constituted and problematised in mental health policies in two distinctive contexts, unsettling the taken-for granted assumptions which underpin these problematisations. Two policies were selected for analysis as exemplar pieces of mental health policy reform in Hong Kong and New South Wales (NSW). Subjects were constituted as 'patientised' individuals (in Hong Kong) encouraged to depend on professionals who help them reintegrate into the 'normal' community, and as 'traumatised' individuals (in NSW) expected to take responsibility to guide the delivery of mental health care and respected as a part of diversity in community settings. While both policies constituted subjects as 'unwell individuals' and enacted 'dividing practices', subjectivities were shaped by distinctive cultural and socio-political contexts. This analysis shifts our attention away from a focus on the effectiveness of policy solutions to the heterogeneity and contingency of policy 'problems' and 'subjects', opening up new possibilities for 'out-of-the-box' policy responses to mental health

China · Contingency · Diversity (politics · Mental health · Mental illness · Middle Eastern Mental Health Issues & Syndromes · Political science · Politics · Psychiatry · Sociology · Healthcare innovation and challenges · Law · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Psychology