Category: Volume 22 Number 1

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 77 – 89 PDF Lucas Trout and Lisa Wexler Abstract Youth suicide is a significant health disparity in circumpolar indigenous communities, with devastating impacts on individual, family, and community levels. This study draws on structured interviews and ethnographic work with health professionals in the Alaskan Arctic to examine the meanings assigned to Alaska Native youth suicide, as well as the health systems that shape clinicians’…

Continue reading “Arctic Suicide, Social Medicine, and the Purview of Care in Global Mental Health”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 179 – 186 PDF Bram Wispelwey and Yasser Abu Jamei Abstract The Gaza Strip is under an Israeli land, sea, and air blockade that is exacerbated by Egyptian restrictions and imposes an enormous cost in terms of human suffering. The effects of blockade, poverty, and frequent attacks suffered by the population have taken a significant toll on people’s mental health. The Great March of Return,…

Continue reading “The Great March of Return: Lessons from Gaza on Mass Resistance and Mental Health”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 133 – 144 PDF Rory Neirin Higgs Abstract The Hearing Voices Movement is an international grassroots movement that aims to shift public and professional attitudes toward experiences—such as hearing voices and seeing visions—that are generally associated with psychosis. The Hearing Voices Movement identifies these experiences as having personal, relational, and cultural significance. Incorporating this perspective into mental health practice and policy has the potential to…

Continue reading “Reconceptualizing Psychosis: The Hearing Voices Movement and Social Approaches to Health”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 151 – 162 PDF Jasna Russo and Stephanie Wooley Abstract The social model of disability—which is grounded in the lived realities of disabled people, as well as their activism, research, and theoretical work—has enabled a historic turn in the understanding of disability. This model also facilitates the transition to the rights-based approach that is at the core of the United Nations Convention on the Rights…

Continue reading “The Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: More Than Just Another Reform of Psychiatry”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 309 – 314 PDF Marge Berer Beyond Virtue and Vice: Rethinking Human Rights and Criminal Law, edited by Alice M. Miller and Mindy Jane Roseman, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. This multi-authored book, edited by Alice M. Miller and Mindy Jane Roseman, raises questions about when and why human rights defenders promoting sexuality, reproductive, and gender-based rights as human rights are increasingly calling for the…

Continue reading “BOOK REVIEW: Why Prosecution Is Not the Go-To Tool to Secure Human Rights”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 61 – 68 PDF Lisa Cosgrove and Allen F. Shaughnessy Abstract Although there is consensus that a rights-based approach to mental health is needed, there is disagreement about how best to conceptualize and execute it. The dominance of the medical model and industry’s influence on psychiatry has led to an over-emphasis on intra-individual solutions, namely increasing individuals’ access to biomedical treatments, with a resultant under-appreciation…

Continue reading “Mental Health as a Basic Human Right and the Interference of Commercialized Science”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 35 – 50 PDF Faraaz Mahomed Abstract Throughout the world, mental health remains a neglected priority, low on the agenda of policy makers and funders at the national and international levels. While this is shifting somewhat, there remains a considerable need to address the underprioritization of mental health and well-being, perhaps even more so in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, given the history…

Continue reading “Addressing the Problem of Severe Underinvestment in Mental Health and Well-Being from a Human Rights Perspective”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 265 – 278 PDF Tamar Ezer, Megan S. Wright, and Joseph J. Fins Abstract Brain injury contributes more to death and disability globally than any other traumatic incident. While the past decade has seen significant medical advances, laws and policies remain stumbling blocks to treatment and care. The quality of life of persons with severe brain injury often declines with unnecessary institutionalization and inadequate access…

Continue reading “The Neglect of Persons with Severe Brain Injury in the United States: An International Human Rights Analysis”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 51 – 60 PDF Jenifer Wogen and Maria Teresa Restrepo Abstract The primary purpose of political, civil, socioeconomic, and cultural rights is to protect the dignity of all human beings. Good mental health and well-being is defined by the “social, psychosocial, economic, and physical environment that enables individuals and populations to live a life of dignity, with full enjoyment of their rights and in the…

Continue reading “Human Rights, Stigma, and Substance Use”

Volume 22/1, June 2020, pp 7 – 21 PDF Linda Steele, Ray Carr, Kate Swaffer, Lyn Phillipson, and Richard Fleming Abstract This paper responds to growing concerns in human rights practice and scholarship about the confinement of people living with dementia in care homes. Moving beyond the existing focus in human rights scholarship on the role of restrictive practices in confinement, the paper broadens and nuances our understanding of confinement…

Continue reading “Human Rights and the Confinement of People Living with Dementia in Care Homes”