Welcome to the course blog for
Mental Health and Social Policy


You can use this blog to:

  • Obtain copies of powerpoint presentations from the course lectures
  • Post comments and pose questions about those lectures
  • Upload and download links to web pages and other resources
  • Discuss issues around the topic of mental health and social policy



  • All students on the course have been given author privileges for this blog. Power of this kind brings with it certain responsibilities and here they are:
  • Post questions about lectures using the comments facility rather than creating a new post
  • Keep your comments brief, courteous and, above all relevant
  • Use the 'create new post' facility to raise topics for discussion which are not directly relevant to a specific lecture (e.g. events, resources, general topics or requests for help)
  • Place links to web-based resources in the sidebar over there ======>
  • Don't post or comment when you are tired, drunk or otherwise coping with the stresses of modern living.
  • You may not agree with everything said on the blog but try not to get too worked up or upset about it. It's only a blog
  • Try to keep your postings polite and reasonable, Offensive posts will be removed.
  • Bullying or harassment will not be tolerated and will result in the offender's suspension from the blog

  • To find out how to post items refer to the blogger help facility on the tool bar at the top right hand side of the page.
  • To receive updates on the blog as they occur, subscribe to one of the RSS feeds via the link at the foot of the page (If you're not sure what RSS feeds are or how they work, have a look at this little video by the good folks at commoncraft)


You may choose to use this blog simply as a resource for obtaining course materials. However, it can serve much wider purposes than that and allow for discussion, debate, the sharing of resources and information amongst course members. I hope it will support a sense of collective engagement, shared communication and learning as the course progresses.

Enjoy it and don't be afraid to contribute

Sunday 25 November 2007

Labelling Madness &Deviance




Further reading

You can download the original Rosenhan paper On being sane in insane places here


There's also a chapter taken from Thomas Scheff's On Being Mentally Ill available on-line here

See also
Gove, W. R. (1970) "Societal reaction as an explanation of mental illness: an evaluation." Amer. Soc. Rev.35: 863-884.
Gove, W. R. [ed.] (1980) "Labelling and mental illness: a critique," in The Labeling of Deviance: Evaluating a Perspective. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Gove, W. R. [ed.] (1982) "The current status of the labelling theory of mental illness," in Deviance and Mental Illness. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Lecture 8 Gender and Mental Health



Further Reading

Busfield J (1996) Men women and madness New York: NYU Press

Kennedy H (2001) Do men need special services? Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 7 93-99

Prior P (1999) Gender and mental health Basingstoke:MacMillan

WHO (2000) Women's mental health: an evidence based review Geneva: WHO (downloadable here)

Sunday 18 November 2007

Presentation Assessment Guidelines

The assessment guidelines for the presentation are now available for download. You can click on the link in the sidebar or here to download a copy of the document.

If you have any difficulty downloading this, please contact me as a matter of urgency.

You might find the video below of some use in preparing your presentation.

Life After Death by PowerPoint

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Friday 2 November 2007

Course assessment and other stuff

I have now added a set of links to the course materials. These include the following:
  1. The original course outline with a range of selected readings (PDF)
  2. A schedule of lectures until the end of term (PDF)
  3. The blank form on which you should submit your research proposal (Word document)
The deadline for submission for the latter has yet to be confirmed but will probably be sometime in early January. Watch this space for further details.

In the meantime I will continue to upload my powerpoints for your reference and will post up some guidelines for the course presentation and the research proposal exercise in the coming days.

If you have any difficulties accessing this material let me know as soon as possible.