Disability and Madness in Colonial Asylum Records in Australia and New Zealand

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharine Coleborne
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Emotional Disability ◽  
Health Studies ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Bodily Difference

Case records examined here are those of inmates in two public institutions for the insane in colonial Victoria, Australia, and in Auckland, New Zealand, between 1870 and 1910. In the international field of mental health studies and histories of psychiatry, intellectual disability has been the subject of detailed historical inquiry and forms part of the critical discussion about how institutions for the “insane” housed a range of inmates in the nineteenth century. Yet the archival records of mental hospitals have rarely been examined in any sustained way for their detail about the physically disabled or those whose records denote bodily difference. References to the physical manifestations of various forms of intellectual or emotional disability, as well as to bodily difference and “deformity,” were part of the culture of the colonial institution, which sought to categorize, label, and ascribe identities to institutional inmates.

scholarly journals Services for adults with intellectual disability in Aotearoa New Zealand

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (03) ◽  
pp. 71-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane McCarthy ◽  
Mhairi Duff
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Mental Health Legislation ◽  
Health Professional Training ◽  
Training Schemes ◽  
Health Legislation

Aotearoa New Zealand is a country of just under 5 million people with a diverse population, the main ethnic groups being of European descent and Maori. There are well-developed public and private healthcare systems. As in other countries, Aotearoa New Zealand has closed the large institutions and developed community-based services for people with intellectual disability. Aotearoa New Zealand has specific legislation for people with intellectual disability presenting to the criminal justice system and has unusually and explicitly excluded people with intellectual disability from mental health legislation since 1992. Partly as a result, most health professional training schemes have little focus on issues for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Therefore, one of the main challenges over the coming decade will be to ensure there is a sufficient workforce of psychiatrists and other professionals who have the training and expertise to work with people with intellectual disability requiring mental health and forensic services.

scholarly journals The psychological effects of unemployment: a review of the literature

1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Macky ◽  
Hilary Haines
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Differential Effect ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual

The literature on the psychological effects of unemployment is reviewed, with particular attention being paid to the somewhat scarce New Zealand literature on the subject. Studies conducted at the macrosocial level are discussed, followed by studies that focus on the individual, with respect to physical health, mental health and psychological well-being, and social attitudes. The differential effect of unemployment on various social groups is examined, and the methodological deficiencies in some of the studies reviewed are summarized. In conclusion, it is suggested that the documented psychological ill-effects of unemployment should make us view rising levels of unemployment with concern.

Resisting the Silence

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (8) ◽  
pp. 1011-1030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Gibson ◽  
Jan Wilson ◽  
Jade Le Grice ◽  
Fred Seymour
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Young People ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Digital Communication ◽  
Prevention Strategies ◽  
Control Information ◽  
The Subject

Suicide prevention strategies include attempts to control information young people receive about suicide, but digital communication provides young people with alternative forums to engage with this issue. This article explores the constraints and opportunities for youth to talk about suicide in New Zealand. A thematic analysis of data from focus groups with young people suggests they resist what they see as a taboo on talking about suicide, see adults as unwilling to engage in conversations with them about suicide, and are reluctant to seek help for suicide from mental health professionals. They prefer to talk about suicide with peers, although there are challenges with doing this in person. Access to digital communication may provide young people with alternative forums to communicate about suicide which further undermines their willingness to engage with adults on the subject. This has led to a gap in communication between youth and adults on suicide.

The future role of the psychiatrist in Europe – a UEMS perspective

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
pp. 35-42
Author(s):  
M. Hermans
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Future Role ◽  
Personal Opinion ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many

SummaryThe author presents his personal opinion inviting to discussion on the possible future role of psychiatrists. His view is based upon the many contacts with psychiatrists all over Europe, academicians and everyday professionals, as well as the familiarity with the literature. The list of papers referred to is based upon (1) the general interest concerning the subject when representing ideas also worded elsewhere, (2) the accessibility to psychiatrists and mental health professionals in Germany, (3) being costless downloadable for non-subscribers and (4) for some geographic aspects (e.g. Belgium, Spain, Sweden) and the latest scientific issues, addressing some authors directly.

Prescriptive Power: Biologism, Biopsychiatry and Drug-centred Psychopharmacology

Somatechnics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 291-309
Author(s):  
Francis Russell
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biological Ontology ◽  
Health Discourse

This paper looks to make a contribution to the critical project of psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, by elucidating her account of ‘drug-centred’ psychiatry, and its relation to critical and cultural theory. Moncrieff's ‘drug-centred’ approach to psychiatry challenges the dominant view of mental illness, and psychopharmacology, as necessitating a strictly biological ontology. Against the mainstream view that mental illnesses have biological causes, and that medications like ‘anti-depressants’ target specific biological abnormalities, Moncrieff looks to connect pharmacotherapy for mental illness to human experience, and to issues of social justice and emancipation. However, Moncrieff's project is complicated by her framing of psychopharmacological politics in classical Marxist notions of ideology and false consciousness. Accordingly, she articulates a political project that would open up psychiatry to the subjugated knowledge of mental health sufferers, whilst also characterising those sufferers as beholden to ideology, and as being effectively without knowledge. Accordingly, in order to contribute to Moncrieff's project, and to help introduce her work to a broader humanities readership, this paper elucidates her account of ‘drug-centred psychiatry’, whilst also connecting her critique of biopsychiatry to notions of biologism, biopolitics, and bio-citizenship. This is done in order to re-describe the subject of mental health discourse, so as to better reveal their capacities and agency. As a result, this paper contends that, once reframed, Moncrieff's work helps us to see value in attending to human experience when considering pharmacotherapy for mental illness.

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