Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T05:29:41.434Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The value of work in the 1980s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Geoff Shepherd*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Mental health professionals seem to have a curiously ambivalent attitude towards work. On the one hand, it is generally accepted that the experience of unemployment is often associated with severe social and psychological distress. On the other, we seem reluctant to strive to provide work for those patients who have the greatest social and psychiatric disabilities and for whom work, in all its forms, may have the greatest benefit. I don't wish to speculate on the psychological roots of this ambivalence, although I suspect that it stems, at least in part, from the way in which we all feel about our own jobs. However, there are other reasons why the concept of work has always sat uneasily within the context of psychiatric services.

Type
Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989

References

Bennett, D. H. (1983) The historical development of rehabilitation services. In Theory and Practice of Psychiatric Rehabilitation (eds. F. N. Watts & D. H. Bennett). Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Harding, C. M., Strauss, J. S., Hafez, H. & Liberman, P. B. (1987) Work and mental illness. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 175, 317326.Google Scholar
Hartley, J. (1980) Psychological approaches to unemployment. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 32, 309314.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1985) Second Report from the Social Services Committee Session 1984–85. Community Care with Special Reference to Adult Mentally Ill and Mentally Handicapped People. Vol. 1. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Jones, K. (1972) A History of the Mental Health Services. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Linn, M. W., Caffey, E. M., Klett, J., Hogarty, G. E. & Lamb, H. R. (1979) Day treatment and psychotropic drugs in the aftercare of schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36, 10551066.Google Scholar
Pilling, S. (1988) Work and the continuing care client. In Community Care in Practice (eds. A. Lavender & F. Holloway). Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Tarrier, N. (1987) An investigation of residual psychotic symptoms in discharged schizophrenic patients. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 26, 141143.Google Scholar
Warner, R. (1985) Recovery from Schizophrenia. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Warr, P. B. (1987) Work, Unemployment and Mental Health. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Warr, P. B. & Jackson, P. R. (1985) Factors influencing the psychological impact of prolonged unemployment and of re-employment. Psychological Medicine, 15, 795807.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K. & Brown, G. W. (1970) Institutionalism and Schizophrenia. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.