How the new mental health aware world--puzzling, alarming, and exasperating--has been constructed. Are We Well? takes a bird's-eye look at the rapidly rising public profile of mental health in recent decades. Clinical psychologist Derek Bolton and psychiatrist Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed explore not only individual, family, and social mental health perspectives, but also the expansion of the mental health world, the growing media attention to high levels of mental health difficulties, and the concerns that our current hyperawareness of the topic may be overreaching.
The book focuses on major changes in Western psychiatry and culture since the mid-twentieth century, highlighting the twin policy directions of deinstitutionalization--the closing of large mental hospitals to be replaced by care in the community--and the planned development of public mental health services for the population at large. The authors argue that both movements unsettled long-held ideas about mental disorder, normality, and how we distinguish between them, prompting a period of reconstruction that is still unfolding.
Drawing on a wide range of topics in psychiatry, including diagnostics, epidemiology, and causes and treatments, the book also discusses cultural and political dimensions such as mental health activism (from civil rights to Mad Pride), responses to stigma and social exclusion, emerging concepts like neurodiversity, and widespread social acceptance of diagnostics and treatments.
全新心理健康意識世界——令人困惑、警覺不安且令人惱怒——是如何建構而成的。
《我們健康嗎？》從宏觀角度審視近幾十年來心理健康在公共領域中迅速提升的能見度。臨床心理學家 Derek Bolton 與精神科醫師 Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed 不僅探討個人、家庭與社會層面的心理健康觀點，也探究心理健康世界的擴張、媒體日益關注高度心理健康困擾的現象，以及我們目前對這個議題的高度關注是否已經超出合理範圍。
本書聚焦於二十世紀中葉以來西方精神醫學與文化的重要變革，突顯兩項並行的政策方向：去機構化（deinstitutionalization）——關閉大型精神病院，改由社區照護取代——以及有計畫地發展面向全體人口的公共心理健康服務。作者主張，這兩股運動都動搖了人們長久以來對精神障礙、正常性，以及如何區分兩者的既有觀念，進而促成一段至今仍在持續展開的重建時期。
本書涵蓋精神醫學中的廣泛主題，包括診斷、流行病學，以及成因與治療；同時也探討文化與政治層面，例如心理健康倡議（從民權運動到 Mad Pride）、對污名與社會排斥的回應、新興的神經多樣性（neurodiversity）概念，以及社會普遍接受診斷與治療的現象。
Derek Bolton is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, and Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the South London & Maudsley NHS Trust.
Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed is a researcher and lecturer in philosophy of psychiatry and mental health. He practices psychiatry at a community mental health team in the NHS and is Senior Editor for the journal
Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology.
Derek Bolton 是倫敦國王學院精神醫學、心理學與神經科學研究所的哲學與精神病理學榮譽退休教授，也是 South London & Maudsley NHS Trust 的名譽顧問臨床心理師。
Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed 是精神醫學與心理健康哲學領域的研究員兼講師。他在 NHS 的社區心理健康團隊中從事精神醫學臨床工作，並擔任《Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology》期刊的資深編輯。
