Long-Term Distress – the Return of the Lost

The role of the mental health patient. Career. Stigma. Residual deviation. Needs. The lifeworld of people with long-term conditions. Hospitalisation and institutionalisation. Housing. Work and employment. Interactional transgressions. Institutionalised careers. Daily life and errands. Social life. Belonging and non-belonging. Gender-dependent life situations. Planning responses to long-term adversity. Transforming needs and situations into solutions to distress. Transferring people with long-term mental health problems from institutions to the community. Personalised planning and implementation of mental health services. The gentle teaching method. Role reassessment and normalisation. Power contracting. Empowerment. Support for family and loved ones.

Areas of discrimination in social work: poverty, gender, ethnicity, education, employment, independtent life, accomodation. Structural inequalities in health and need for advocacy. Intersectionality. Tactics and dynamic of exclusion in everyday life. Impact of physical and sexual violence on mental health. Work with people who are experiencing violence. Impact of homophobia on mental health. Poverty and mental health. Homelessness. Dual diagnosis. Migration as source of mental distress. Obstacles to the participation of the children with intellectual disabilities and mental distress in proceedings where decision about their lives are made. Exits from multiple discrimination: institutional, collective, personal strategies. Social and environmental justice to reduce social inequalities.