151 SIX Psychosocial accounts Parts One and Two of this book examined how women who use illicit drugs are governed by analysing how they are constituted within official and academic discourse. The operation of three technologies of power as they are expressed through academic and drug policy discourse was explored. Official discourse ascribes multiple and contradictory characteristics to women who use illicit drugs, and in so doing makes them amenable to governmental regulation. Particular norms of behaviour are established through official discourse, and
151 SIX Psychosocial accounts Parts One and Two of this book examined how women who use illicit drugs are governed by analysing how they are constituted within official and academic discourse. The operation of three technologies of power as they are expressed through academic and drug policy discourse was explored. Official discourse ascribes multiple and contradictory characteristics to women who use illicit drugs, and in so doing makes them amenable to governmental regulation. Particular norms of behaviour are established through official discourse, and
Introduction This article identifies the distinctive nature of arts-based psychosocial research and practice in a public mental health context by focusing on two projects delivered as part of The Big Anxiety festival in Sydney, Australia in 2017 – ‘Awkward Conversations’ and ‘Parragirls Past, Present’ – works that the authors were engaged in both producing and evaluating. If the goal of psychosocial research and practice is to overcome the abstraction of psychology from lived experience (and vice versa), we argue that arts-based methods offer both a potent
Introduction The purpose of the article is to explore how a psychosocial approach to class can shed light on the ways in which neoliberal governmentality works through healthism’s moral judgements and how different emotions within a ‘field of judgements’ are rooted in class relations. Dahl (2012: 284) states that neoliberalism ‘is not confined to what is traditionally understood as the political sphere, but it is a new societal logic suffusing our bodies and minds’. This article explores the implications of this statement in a psychosocial perspective
Introduction Psychosocial studies takes many forms, but in this article it is presented as an emerging intellectual practice that works in a transdisciplinary way across psychology, sociology and several related disciplines (anthropology, feminism, postcolonial studies, queer studies and so on). It is derived particularly from European (especially British) traditions of critical social psychology and sociology, critical theory and political and social psychoanalysis. Its primary concern is with the ways in which psychic and social processes demand to be
form of accommodation for the duration of their sentence: in England and Wales there are approximately 83,000 incarcerated individuals (79,000 men and 4,000 women) ( Ministry of Justice, 2018 ), approximately the same number as the population of a small town such as Bath in Somerset, England. In this article I argue for the significance of a psychosocial framework in conceptualising the experience of mental distress and disorder within prison settings, suggesting that a disavowal of the necessity for such a response (as arguably exists in much of current practice
group analysis for decades ( Hopper, 2003 ). Nevertheless, relevant topics that interweave people, groups and societies remain unexplored. In its turn, psychosocial studies is defined as a critical approach, based on a dialogue between different disciplines, interested in articulating a place of ‘suture’ between elements whose contribution to the production of the human subject is theorised separately. Psychosocial studies of these kinds focus on conceptualising and researching a type of subject that is both social and psychological, and which is constituted in and
, 2012 ) or how the social becomes biological ( Blane et al, 2013 ). A theoretical review describes the interlinked processes through which health inequalities develop, classifying them into three pathways, referred to as material, behavioural and psychosocial ( Benzeval et al, 2014 ). The focus here is on the psychosocial pathway, that is, social exposures and psychological responses to them, but its relationship with health is understood within the context of the other two. The health outcome chosen is an immune-mediated disease; adult-onset asthma. The immune
51 Responding to psychosocial reactions FOUR Responding to psychosocial reactions Theoretical models The concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has produced a variety of theoretical models that may be used to explain its impact on traumatised individuals. These models are derived from biological, physiological, cognitive behavioural and psychodynamic frameworks. This variety is conducive to examination of the many facets of PTSD. Insights from one theoretical model appear to complement rather than contradict insights derived from another theoretical
Introduction In this article we offer a psychosocial analysis of a forum theatre course targeted at young people and adults in care and custodial settings. We consider how devising and performing a drama entailed the production of ‘third space’ – a form of transitional space ( Winnicott, [1967] 1971 ) in which relations to reality can be refigured. Applied theatre has been defined by its educational purposes, or its ability to bring about social vitalisation or behavioural change. As such, it sits easily within a policy agenda that demands that publicly
