Power and Control in Mental Health Social Work

Community Care and Involuntary Intervention
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-4473-6951-6
Verlag: Bristol University Press

Buch, Englisch, 186 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 440 g

Reihe: Research in Social Work

Power and control sit at the heart of statutory social work. In a profession grounded in social justice, practices of control are often positioned as reinforcing inequality and oppression. Yet normative critiques of control embedded within conflictual theories of power can lead to overlooking the complex realities of everyday practice.

Drawing on practitioner and service user interviews, case file analysis and detailed observations, this book offers a rare ethnographic account of how control is enacted, negotiated and experienced in community mental health settings. Informed by Foucauldian conceptions of power, it moves beyond abstract debate to examine what control looks like on the ground.

Combining original research with critical analysis, it reveals the value of an ethically informed but non-prescriptive approach to the ambiguities of control, allowing for a more modest, honest and heterogenous orientation to progressive forms of practice.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jobling, Hannah

Hardy, Mark

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Gesundheitssystem, Gesundheitswesen
• Rechtswissenschaften Öffentliches Recht Medizin- und Gesundheitsrecht
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Pflege Psychiatrische Pflege
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Arbeit/Sozialpädagogik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Virtuous authority? Power and control in practice

1. Theorising power and control

2. Control and community mental health practice

3. A virtual asylum? The various meanings of compulsion in the community

4. Experiencing Control - how Service users navigated CTOs

5. Enacting control - the purpose and practices of CTOs

6. Sense of an ending - deciding when to relinquish control

7. Practice paradoxes and (perverse) consequences

8. Reconciling Control

Reference List

Appendix: How the study was conducted

Über Autor(innen)

Hardy, Mark
Mark Hardy is Honorary Fellow in Social Work at the University of York. He writes on social work theory and practice, particularly the nature of risk within mental health and forensic social work.

Jobling, Hannah
Hannah Jobling is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of York, with interests including mental health social work, social work across time and place and community-based approaches to social support.

Hannah Jobling is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of York, with interests including mental health social work, social work across time and place and community-based approaches to social support.

Mark Hardy is Honorary Fellow in Social Work in the School for Business and Society at the University of York. He writes on social work theory and practice, particularly the nature of risk within mental health and forensic social work.