Understanding Mental Health Practice

Brillant book to inspect mental health as a practitioner

A clear, digestible introduction to the subject.

As a means to review the book, I decided to have two highly academic students to read a few chapters each and see how they found the book and here are the students' comments:
Student 1 = "Understanding Mental Health Practice". I found it to be a good introduction to mental health practice. The case studies helped to contextualise the content and the activities helped to consider how theory applies to practice.
Student 2 = I found the book to be a good introduction to mental health concepts and I think it will stand me in good stead for future placements. I would recommend it to students as it discusses, what I found to be, the dominating issues and approaches currently at the forefront of mental health practice.
It introduces therapeutic approaches alongside pharmacology in treating common mental health issues, assessment and care planning and suicide risk and recovery, all of which I encountered on a daily basis during my placement.

In my opinion, the author has a clear agenda and ideology concerning mental health practice and, while I agree with it, it does present as very idealistic and students reading it before experiencing practice might feel disappointed if they are expecting something similar. Maybe it is outside the scope of the book but perhaps a chapter addressing the direction of travel to the author’s vision would have been comforting. It has a feel of ‘I’ll tell you what you lot should do’ without any hint that these ideas have been developed and stress tested though application.

In summary, I would certainly recommend it to students as it introduces many of the concepts and much of the vocabulary readers will encounter in the field and perhaps it will stimulate a conversation about alternatives to the current system of mental health practice.

Raymond Ndengeya (Reviewer):
Concluding remarks from : As a Mental Health Lecturer I find this book to be a good vehicle to transmit the message of the mental health agenda, as it should be. It gives students a basis to assess their placements on and stimulate discussions aimed at improving patient outcomes and services. It is rich in terminologies and techniques as well as processes that should help students form a solid foundation in mental health theory.
Clear examples and case studies certainly help students form a mental picture of the concepts.
Highly Recommendable.