Work and the Mental Health Crisis in Britain

There is longstanding interest in the relationship between mental health and work. Based on new data, this book challenges much of the conventional wisdom in this area. It suggests that the impact of neoliberal social and economic activity in the UK over recent years has meant the return of potentially debilitating forms of subjugation and exploitation. More people now struggle for fewer jobs of increasing intensity, reduced legal protection and lower real wages.
In addition, recent years have witnessed the implementation of unenforceable health and safety management standards and recommendations to guide workplace organisation. A key consequence of this approach has been the implementation of cultures of mental health replete with practices of discipline, control and identity configuration, with greater emphasis on productivity at the cost of mental wellbeing. This book outlines the way in which the lived experiences of mental health often fail to accord with modern industrial and corporate visions of acceptable personhood. In doing so, it questions the fundamental and largely accepted cultural maxim that work is unquestionably good for people with mental health difficulties.

Spis treści:
About the authors.
Chapter 1 Introduction: Mental health, emotional well–being and 21st century work.
Chapter 2 Getting Britain back to work– a policy perspective.
Chapter 3 Mental Health and Work –Experiences of work.
Chapter 4 Techniques of identity governance and resistance: Formulating the neoliberal worker.
Chapter 5 Managing mental health in organisations.
Chapter 6 Work/Life Balance and the individualised responsibility of the neoliberal worker.
Chapter 7 Concluding thoughts.
References.
Index.

Nota biograficzna:
Carl Walker is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Brighton. His research and teaching interests include social inequalit y and mental distress, cultural representations of mental health, and critical community approaches to psychology. He is course leader for the MA in Community Psychology and is currently engaged in work around employment, personal debt and mental distress. His previous publications include Depression and Globalisation (2007).
Ben Fincham is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex. He has been involved with developing projects on ′mobilities′ and qualitative approaches to studying work in unstable employment environments, and his current research focuses on the complex relationship between work and mental health. He is co–author of Mobile Methodologies (2010).

Okładka tylna:
There is longstanding interest in the relationship between mental health and work. Based on new data, this book challenges much of the conventional wisdom in this area. It suggests that the impact of neoliberal social and economic activity in the UK over recent years has meant the return of potentially debilitating forms of subjugation and exploitation. More people now struggle for fewer jobs of increasing intensity, reduced legal protection and lower real wages.
In addition, recent years have witnessed the implementation of unenforceable health and safety management standards and recommendations to guide workplace organisation. A key consequence of this approach has been the implementation of cultures of mental health replete with practices of discipline, control and identity configuration, with greater emphasis on productivity at the cost of mental wellbeing. This book outlines the way in which the lived experiences of mental health often fail to accord with modern industrial and corporate visions of acceptable personhood. In doing so, it questions the fundamental and largely accepted cultural maxim that work is unquestionably good for people with mental health difficulties.