Social work is one of the core mental health professions. With a dominance of a biological model in psychiatry, the scope of social factors has been relatively marginal. Social factors have been argued to be social work ́s area of expertise. Psychiatric social work is challenged to articulate its unique knowledge and valuable contribution to the field of mental health care since they are coexisting with other more well-established professions. This qualitative study explores how psychiatric social workers and psychiatrists in Goa, India, perceive social work's unique knowledge and its contribution to the field of mental health care. It further explores psychiatric social workers understanding of social factors in relation to mental illness. The empirical material was collected through twelve semi-structured interviews with ten psychiatric social workers and two psychiatrists working in different mental health care settings in Goa. The results show that the main psychiatric social work contributions were described as raising awareness about mental illness and their functioning as a bridge between units. The result further shows a difficulty (among psychiatric social workers) to articulate psychiatric social work's unique knowledge, but during the interviews a specific in-depth knowledge emerged as well as a focus on psychiatric knowledge. Our findings showed that psychiatric social workers understood social factors in terms of social relations. The results are analyzed with Foucault's theory of discourse, Polanyi's theory of tacit knowledge and Ingleheart’s modernization theory.

This purpose of this dissertation was to examine the attitudes of retirees toward mental illness treatment. Secondary data from the Survey Research Center at the University of North Texas was utilized for this study. The focus was on the influence that gender, income, education, race/ethnicity, personal experience, fear, goodwill, and social control might have had on retirees' attitudes toward mental illness treatment. An n = 225 was selected out of the existing data to serve as the sample population. Binary logistic regression was utilized to analyze the data. Results indicated that the obtained significant findings were consistent with existing literature.

Thesis (M. A. (Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / Several studies have shown that alternative health care practitioners play an important role in addressing the mental health care needs of individuals by offering culturally appropriate treatment. In South Africa, it has been suggested that indigenous healers are frequently consulted for mental illness when compared to their Western trained counterparts. The aim of the present study was to explore the conceptualization of mental illness by VhaVenda indigenous healers. Specifically, the study sought to achieve the following objectives: a). Establish what VhaVenda indigenous healers understand about mental illness; b). Determine the types of mental illness identified by VhaVenda indigenous healers; and, c). To determine what indigenous healers in this community perceive as the signs and symptoms of mental illness. A qualitative approach, and in particular, the case study method was used in the present study. Ten indigenous healers (male = 8: female = 2), aged between 35 and 60 were selected through snowball sampling and requested to participate in the study. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using the content analysis method. The following psychological themes emerged from the study: a). participants understanding of mental illness; b). causes of mental illness; c). types of mental illness; d). signs and symptoms of mental illness; e). diagnoses of mental illness and f). Treatment of mental illness. The findings revealed that there are multiple causalities of mental illness and were accounted for by African indigenous beliefs. The findings of the present study further suggested that the participants do not have an elaborate nosological system that distinguishes between the different types of mental illness. Instead of giving names to the illnesses, the participants tended to describe the illness based on what is perceived as the cause which emanate from cultural ideologies. Furthermore, the results revealed that indigenous healers use the following treatment modalities to treat mental illness: namely, the use of herbs and indigenous practices. The study is concluded by making a few recommendations, that among others include consideration been given to some form of collaboration between indigenous healers and western trained health care practitioners.

This study examined the clinical utility of the recently released National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH) research domain criteria (RDoC) by replicating and extending earlier work by using a demographically novel sample. Information retrieval and natural language processing of archival clinical records was used to achieve two main objectives: (1) estimate how well the RDoC domains match language used by clinicians by creating domain scores and (2) examine the differences between the DSM's and RDoC's ability to predict treatment outcome using these domain scores and DSM diagnoses. The social systems RDoC category was found to be the strongest predictor of treatment outcome across all diagnostic measures.

This thesis analyzes the training and perceptions on mental health of a particular population. Through the use of previous research and literature, a survey was generated and distributed to the population. The findings were used to generate policy implications for the specific population that was analyzed.

Stigma has been described as the most significant obstacle to quality of life for individuals with major psychiatric diagnoses (Sartorious, 1998). Much of the psychological literature on stigma focuses on individual attributes and interactions at the micro level, rather than macro level dynamics. In critiquing this traditional focus, Link and Phelan (2001) present a model in which stigma ensues when labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination co-occur in a situation of power imbalance. Even as the model fills a gap in conceptualizing stigma, its emphasis on power is unidirectional and fails to account for power as a form of resistance to stigmatization. This study explores the question of how a consumer/survivor activist perspective can inform the Link and Phelan model of stigma. A semi-structured interview methodology was used to gather qualitative data on the perspectives of 10 activists who are both the targets of stigma and active change agents in resisting stigma. The content of the interviews was thematically analyzed based on an iterative coding approach in order to identify the points of overlap with and divergence from the Link and Phelan model. The results of the study support the applicability of the model for psychiatric stigma. The participants' experiences illustrate which aspects of stigmatization take precedence in this context, indicating significant points for intervention. The anti-stigma work discussed by the participants illustrates the power of grassroots resistance, expanding the understanding of power presented in the model. Emergent discursive themes include the importance of similarity, the rejection of negative portrayals of mental illness, and a focus on a shared continuum of human experience. Participants' emphasis on the importance of having their voices silenced was a particularly recurring motif. Several respondents challenge the premises of the Link and Phelan model. These participants emphasize the positive aspects of diagnosis and labeling, while several other participants reject the choice of the term stigma because it may obscure the structural aspects of discrimination. These findings can serve as a guideline for designing future interventions, and focusing on strategies for social change.

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