Voices from the margins: inserting the social in mental health discourse

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how social work, despite its commitment to empowering practice, has come to be somewhat marginalised within the wider professional discourses that are currently shaping mental health practice and training. This is at the very time that the user movement has started to be heard in its own right as a stakeholder in relation to service development, and as service users are becoming more directly involved as contributors to mental health training. The article explores the need for a more clearly articulated understanding of mental distress from a social empowerment perspective, and examines some of the factors which have so far impeded this. Finally, it looks at how social work may now move on to find a more distinct and effective ‘voice’ within professional and educational discourses—one that connects with (but does not speak for) the concerns of service users.