Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T03:17:33.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Politics of Recognition: What Can a Human Rights Perspective Contribute to Understanding Users' Experiences of Involvement in Mental Health Services?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

Lydia Lewis
Lydia Lewis*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Warwick E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the UK, participation in decision-making is increasingly being viewed as a right for users of mental health services. Yet research repeatedly finds a policy implementation gap in this area. Drawing on a localised, qualitative study involving three mental health service user/community groups, this article frames this issue in terms of a ‘politics of recognition’. It demonstrates how whilst government user involvement policies officially attempt to recognise users and their voices, they simultaneously reconstitute failures of recognition in terms of status subordination and a disqualified identity for service users, thereby obstructing participatory parity and amounting to a dereliction of the core principles underlying human rights.

Type
Themed Section on Mental Health and Human Rights
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 257 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beresford, P. (2000), ‘Service users knowledges and social work theory: conflict or collaboration?’, British Journal of Social Work, 30, 489–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bochel, C., Bochel, H., Somerville, P. and Worley, C. (2007), ‘Marginalised or enabled voices? “User participation” in policy and practice’, Social Policy and Society, 7, 2, 201–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1992), Language and Symbolic Power, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Busfield, J. (2006), ‘Mental disorder and human rights’, in Morris, L. (ed.), Rights: Sociological Perspectives, London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Campbell, P. (1999), ‘The service user/survivor movement’, in Newnes, C., Holmes, G. and Dunn, C. (eds.), This is Madness: A Critical Look at Psychiatry and the Future of Mental Health Services, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.Google Scholar
Campbell, P. (2006), ‘Changing the mental health system – a survivor's view’, Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 13, 578–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carpenter, M. (2009), ‘A third wave, not a third way? New Labour, human rights and mental health in historical context’, Social Policy and Society, 8, 3.Google Scholar
Carr, S. (2007), ‘Participation, power, conflict and change: theorising dynamics of service user participation in the social care system of England and Wales’, Critical Social Policy, 27, 2, 266–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connor, S. L. and Wilson, R. (2006), ‘It's important that they learn from us for mental health to progress’, Journal of Mental Health, 15, 4, 461–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coppock, V. and Hopton, J. (2000), Critical Perspectives on Mental Health, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cresswell, M. (2009), ‘Psychiatric survivors and “experiential rights”’, Social Policy and Society, 8, 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crossley, N. (2004), ‘Not being mentally ill: social movements, system survivors and the oppositional habitus’, Anthropology and Medicine, 11, 2, 161–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CSIP/NIMHE (2007), Mental Health: New Ways of Working for Everyone, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
Dean, H. (2008), ‘Social policy and human rights: re-thinking the engagement’, Social Policy and Society, 7, 1, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DHSSPS [Dept. of Health, Social Services and Public Safety] (2000), Mental Health Services in Northern Ireland: VFM Review, Belfast: DHSSPS.Google Scholar
DHSSPS (2004), A Healthier Future: A Twenty Year Vision for health and Wellbeing in Northern Ireland, Belfast: DHSSPS.Google Scholar
DoH [Department of Health] (1999), National Service Framework for Mental Health, London: The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
DoH (2000), The NHS Plan – A Plan for Investment: A Plan for Reform, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
DoH (2001a), Patient Representation in the New NHS, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
DoH (2001b), The Mental Health Policy Implementation Guide, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
DoH (2005), Creating a Patient-led NHS: Delivering the NHS Improvement Plan, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
DoH (2006a), A Stronger Local Voice: A Framework for Creating a Stronger Local Voice in the Development of Health and Social Care Services, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
DoH (2006b), Our Health, Our Care, Our Say, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
DoH (2007a), The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
DoH (2007b), Mental Health Bill 2006–7, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/pabills/200607/mental_health.htmGoogle Scholar
DoH (2007c), Human Rights in Healthcare: A Framework for Local Action, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
DoH (2008), Real Involvement: Working with People to Improve Health Services, London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
Fairclough, N. (1992), Discourse and Social Change, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Fairclough, N. (2001), ‘The discourse of new labour: critical discourse analysis’, in Wetherell, M., Taylor, A. and Yates, S. (eds.), Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Florin, D. and Dixon, J. (2004), ‘Public involvement in health care’, British Medical Journal, 328, 159–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forbes, J. and Sashidharan, S. P. (1997), ‘User involvement in services – incorporation or challenge?’, British Journal of Social Work, 27, 481–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, M. (1982), ‘The subject and power’, Critical Inquiry, 8, 777–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, N. (1997), Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the ‘Postsocialist’ Condition, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. (1999), ‘Social justice in the age of identity politics: redistribution, recognition and participation’, in Ray, L. and Sayer, A. (eds.), Culture and Economy after the Cultural Turn, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. (2000), ‘Rethinking recognition’, New Left Review, 3, 107–20.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. (2001), ‘Recognition without ethics’, Theory, Culture and Society, 18, 2–3, 21–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, N. (2003), ‘Distorted beyond all recognition: a rejoinder to Axel Honneth’, in Fraser, N. and Honneth, A., Redistribution or Recognition? A Political–Philosophical Exchange, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. (2007), ‘Reframing justice in a globalising world’, in Lovell, T. (ed.), (Mis)recognition, Social Inequality and Social Justice: Nancy Fraser and Pierre Bourdieu, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. and Gordon, L. (1994), ‘“Dependency” demystified: inscriptions of power in a keyword of the welfare state’, Social Politics, 1, 1, 4–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, N. and Honneth, A. (2003), Redistribution or Recognition? A Political–Philosophical Exchange, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1959), Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Hodge, S. (2005a), ‘Participation, discourse and power: a case study in service user involvement’, Critical Social Policy, 25, 2, 164–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodge, S. (2005b), ‘Competence, identity and intersubjectivity: applying habermas's theory of communicative action to service user involvement in mental health policy making’, Social Theory and Health, 3, 165–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoggett, P. (2000), Emotional Life and the Politics of Welfare, Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honneth, A. (1995), The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (trans. Andersen, Joel), Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Honneth, A. (2003), ‘Redistribution as Recognition’, in Fraser, N., N. and Honneth, A., Redistribution or Recognition? A Political–Philosophical Exchange, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Hui, A. and Stickley, T. (2007), ‘Mental health policy and mental health service user perspectives on involvement: a discourse analysis’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 59, 4, 416–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kelly, L., Burton, S. and Regan, L. (1994), ‘Researching women's lives or studying women's oppression? Reflections on what constitutes feminist research’, in Maynard, M. and Purvis, J. (eds.), Researching Women's Lives from a Feminist Perspective, London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Lazar, M. (2005), Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, L. (2005), ‘User involvement within Scottish mental health policy: locating power and inequality’, Scottish Affairs, 51, 79–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, L. (2009), ‘Mental health and human rights: a common agenda for user/survivor and women's groups?’, Policy and Politics (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindow, V. (1991), ‘Experts, lies and stereotypes’, The Health Service Journal, August, 18–19.Google Scholar
Lister, R. (1997), Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lister, R. (2004), ‘A politics of recognition and respect: involving people with experience of poverty in decision-making that affects their lives’, in Andersen, J. and Sim, B. (eds.), The Politics of Inclusion and Empowerment, Hampshire, Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lister, R. (2007), ‘(Mis)recognition, social inequality and social justice: a critical social policy perspective’, in Lovell, T. (ed.), (Mis)recognition, Social Inequality and Social Justice: Nancy Fraser and Pierre Bourdieu, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lovell, T. (2007a), ‘Introduction’, in (ed.), (Mis)recognition, Social Inequality and Social Justice: Nancy Fraser and Pierre Bourdieu, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovell, T. (ed.) (2007b), (Mis)recognition, Social Inequality and Social Justice: Nancy Fraser and Pierre Bourdieu, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newnes, C. and Holmes, G. (1999), ‘The future of mental health services’, in Newnes, C., Holmes, G. and Dunn, C. (eds.), This is Madness: A Critical Look at Psychiatry and the Future of Mental Health Services, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.Google Scholar
Orme, J. (2002), ‘Social work: gender, care and justice’, British Journal of Social Work, 32, 799–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, C. (2007), ‘Developing mental health policy: a human rights perspective’, in Knapp, M., McDaid, D., Mossialos, E. and Thornicroft, G. (eds.), Mental Health Policy and Practice across Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pilgrim, D. and Waldron, L. (1998), ‘User involvement in mental health service development: how far can it go?’, Journal of Mental Health, 7, 1, 95–104.Google Scholar
Rogers, A. and Pilgrim, D. (1991), ‘“Pulling down churches”: accounting for the British mental health users' movement’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 13, 2, 129–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, D. (2001), Users' Voices: The Perspectives of Mental Health Service Users on Community and Hospital Care, London: The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.Google Scholar
Rutter, D., Manley, C., Weaver, T., Crawford, M. and Fulop, N. (2004), ‘Patients or partners? Case studies of user involvement in the planning and delivery of adult mental health services in London’, Social Science and Medicine, 58, 1973–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
SEHD [Scottish Executive Health Department] (2000), Our National Health: A Plan for Action, A Plan for Change, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.Google Scholar
SEHD (2001), Patient Focus and Public Involvement, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.Google Scholar
SEHD (2003a), Sustainable Patient Focus and Public Involvement, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.Google Scholar
SEHD (2003b), Partnership for Care: Scotland's Health White Paper, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.Google Scholar
SEHD (2003c), A New Public Involvement Structure for NHS Scotland: Patient Focus and Public Involvement, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.Google Scholar
SEHD (2006), Delivering for Mental Health, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.Google Scholar
SEHD Mental Health Division (2003), An Introduction to the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, T. (2005), ‘Disabling politics? Beyond Identity’, Soundings, 30, 156–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SO [Scottish Office] (1997), A Framework for Mental Health Services in Scotland, Edinburgh: Scottish Office.Google Scholar
Spandler, H. and Calton, T. (2009), ‘Psychosis and human rights: conflicts in mental health policy and practice’, Social Policy and Society, 8, 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stickley, T. (2006), ‘Should service user involvement be consigned to history? A critical realist perspective’, Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 13, 570–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, C. (1992), ‘The politics of recognition’, in Taylor, C. and Gutmann, A., Multi-Culturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, D. (1998), ‘Social identity and social policy: engagements with postmodern theory’, Journal of Social Policy, 27, 3, 329–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tew, J. (2005) (ed.), Social Perspectives in Mental Health: Developing Social Models to Understand and Work with Mental Distress, Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.Google Scholar
Wallcraft, J. with Read, J. and Sweeney, A. (2003), On Our Own Terms: Users and Survivors of Mental Health Services Working Together for Support and Change, London: The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.Google Scholar
Webb, Y., Clifford, P., Fowler, V., Morgan, C. and Hanson, M. (2000), ‘“Comparing patients” experience of mental health services in England: a five-trust survey’, International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 13, 6, 273–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, I. (2005), The Impact of Inequality, London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Williams, F. (1999), ‘Good enough principles for welfare’, Journal of Social Policy, 28, 4, 667–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar