Mental health in Europe

by Shulamit Ramon

This book offers a wide-ranging, in-depth description and analysis of the central developments and controversies in European mental health systems from 1980 to the present day. Taking into account the different stakeholders - including users and carers, women and ethnic minorities - in this hotly debated field, it covers the conceptual and practice-based changes in the way serious mental illness, and people suffering from it, are approached today. It looks at the end of hospitals as the main site of mental health services and the corresponding shift to community-based care, and it gives due recognition to the increasingly prevalent philosophy that clients in need of long-term or continual care are valuable individuals in their own right.