Undergraduate Course: Mental Health and Society (SHSS08007)
Course Outline
| School | School of Health in Social Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 2 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Mental Health and Society will introduce students to social scientific perspectives on understanding, explaining and responding to mental health (with a focus on mental illness/ill-health). The course will offer an important grounding for MA Health in Social Science students in understanding mental health from multidisciplinary social scientific perspectives, but will be of interest to many students studying across the university.
The course will cover the following areas: defining and measuring mental illness; explaining social patterns in mental illness; stigma; responding to mental illness - whole society, community-based and survivor/peer led support. |
| Course description |
Mental health and illness are complex, and intimately shaped by social, cultural, political and economic forces. Despite this complexity, many approaches to understanding mental health and illness draw exclusively on models of mental illness that are informed by psychiatry and psychology, and often by a biomedical model. In this course, we engage in an in-depth exploration of the wider ways in which society shapes understandings and experiences of, and responses to, mental health and illness.
The course is delivered by a multi-disciplinary team of experts within the School of Health in Social Science, and seeks to introduce students to social scientific approaches to explaining, understanding and responding to mental health and illness. The course draws heavily on the sociology of health and illness, as well as anthropology, geography, critical mental health, mad studies and disability studies. Ultimately, the course seeks to challenge students to think about mental health and illness differently, and to ask questions about taken for granted aspects of how mental health and illness are represented and treated, as well as commonly held ideas about the causes of mental health and illness
Mental health is a rapidly growing area of concern for policy makers, health services, and wider society. Historically, mental health has been seen as secondary to physical health, and there are enduring inequalities in how funding for health services is distributed. However, with greater interest and urgency around developing more effective and equitable responses to mental health, comes a greater need for social scientific approaches to mental health to be more widely understood.
The course will cover:
- key approaches and challenges with defining and measuring mental illness;
- understanding and explaining inequalities in mental illness;
- critically assessing treatment approaches - considering 'whole society', community-based, and peer-led support - addressing how this plays out in diverse global contexts;
- addressing stigma as a dominant model for understanding and responding to mental illness;
- considering survivor-led, 'mad studies' and non-medical ways of understanding mental illness.
Each week, an introductory lecture will set out the topic and give a basic grounding. This is followed by a midweek tutorial that presents a problem or issue that students will discuss, debate, or engage in a creative activity in order to explore. During the tutorial, tutors (with student input where possible) will upload feedback or insights to discussion boards in Learn, these will then provide material for revision and further learning, as well as being drawn on in the second lecture of the week. The second lecture each week will build on the learning from the first lecture and tutorials, deepening students' understanding. Content for the second lecture each week will not be reliant on student engagement in tutorials, but will be enhanced by it.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate understanding of diverse social scientific approaches to defining, measuring and explaining mental illness.
- Draw on social scientific knowledge to develop an understanding of how and why inequalities in mental health and illness occur.
- Demonstrate the ability to critically engage with different models of understanding and responding to mental illness.
- Use different methods of communication to share critical social scientific insights regarding mental health and illness to different audiences.
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Reading List
Beresford, P. and Russo, J. eds. (2023) The Routledge International Handbook of Mad Studies. Routledge.
Brossard, B. and Chandler, A. (2022) Explaining Mental Illness: Sociological Perspectives. Bristol: Bristol University Press
Cohen, B. ed. (2018) The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health. Routledge
Mills, C. (2014) Decolonizing Global Mental Health: The psychiatrization of the majority world. Routledge. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- Develop skills in critical analysis and evaluation of ideas and issues in a given subject area
- Convey complex information to a range of audiences for a range of purposes
- Exercise autonomy and initiative in some activities at a professional level in practice or in a subject/discipline/sector.
- Take the lead on planning in familiar or defined contexts. |
| Keywords | Mental health,stigma,mental illness,sociology,anthropology,health,health inequalities |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Sarah Huque
Tel:
Email: shuque@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Brian Tuohy
Tel: (0131 6)50 6661
Email: Brian.Tuohy@ed.ac.uk |
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