Out Now

Critical Mental Health Nursing: observations from the inside

Edited by Pete Bull, Jonathan Gadsby and Stephen Willliams

Mental health nursing cannot continue to pin the blame for its own actions and omissions on the psychiatric hierarchy. It has achieved its ambition to be ‘a profession in its own right’, with a degree-level training. But it has failed to find its own voice, forge an autonomous identity and challenge the coercive, invalidating and traumatising culture and practices that prevail in mainstream mental health services. Above all, it has failed to subject itself to its own critical scrutiny. So say the editors and contributors in this ground-breaking book that takes a searingly self-critical look at the profession and how it can change, starting with an apology to the many millions of people who have been subjected to its failure simply to care.