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Why cause matters
Author(s) -
WHITELAW A.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.69
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1365-2850
pISSN - 1351-0126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2008.01342.x
Subject(s) - mental health , distress , mental distress , promotion (chess) , psychology , inequality , social psychology , criminology , psychiatry , medicine , psychotherapist , political science , politics , law , mathematical analysis , mathematics
Recently, some commentators have suggested, for either pragmatic or philosophical reasons, that the cause of mental distress is irrelevant. In this paper it is suggested that downplaying the role of cause leads to ignoring the link between abuse and mental health difficulties which is disempowering for individuals, short‐sighted for service provision and fails to challenge the social structures, inequalities, conditions, practices, values and attitudes that allow abuse to happen. Acknowledging the causal link between abuse and mental health difficulties implies that in addition to building recovery focused therapeutic relationships with individuals, as mental health nurses we need to take seriously our role in mental health promotion from infancy onwards and to acknowledge the importance of being politically aware and involved.