Welfare Reform on the Web (June 2005): Mental Health Services - Overseas

Mental disorders in the social environment

S. A. Kirk (editor)

New York: Columbia University Press, 2005

Social workers provide more mental health services than any other profession. Recently, however, social work and its traditional emphasis on the social environment have been undermined by trends in psychiatry and neurobiology. Filling an important gap in contemporary discussions within the mental health professions, this book calls on social workers to be more sceptical about biomedical treatments, diagnosis, community treatment, evidence-based practice, psychotherapy, medications, and managed care.