Programme full

Wednesday 15 April 2015 09:00 - 10:30
PAPER SESSION 1
The aim of the following presentation is to draw attention to the complex and intertwined relation between the framing
of mental health problems at the workplace and the organization of care. More specifically, I will address how the
question of causation in mental health problems is related to responsibility.
The presentation is based on recent ethnographic fieldwork and 30 interviews within Swedish primary health care and
occupational health care. The interviews were conducted with care professionals which are involved in diagnosing
and/or treating work-related mental ill health. The research project is an ongoing four year project, of which two years
have been completed so far.
Tentative results show that care professionals link mental health problems at the workplace to multiple frames.
Whether these framings emphasise social, organizational or individual causation has a direct consequence on
responsibility issues. However, according to the care professionals, societal and organizational causes of mental
health problems are generally difficult to address. Consequently, the causes for mental health problems are sought to
be dealt with on an individual level.
‘Making Sense’ and the Uses of Cultural Sociology to Clinical Psychiatry and Psychology: The Case of
Nonsuicidal Self-injury
Steggals, P.
(Newcastle University)
Nonsuicidal self-injury, or what is more commonly called 'self-harm,' is a well-established and somewhat haunting
presence within late-modern western culture. A recent WHO study (2014) reports that the number of English
teenagers self-harming has tripled to around 20% over the last decade. Indeed self-harm has unquestionably become
a deeply significant and highly recognisable form of life; a potent idiom of personal distress and emotional dysphoria
which clearly resonates with the symbolic life of contemporary society and the experiences of psyche and selfhood
typical of this society. In this paper I draw on research I have conducted on self-harm to argue that a sociological
approach, and specifically a cultural sociological approach, is absolutely necessary to understanding this practice. In
recent years cultural sociology has made a significant impression in establishing the role of 'meaning' as one of the
core structuring forces of social life, taking its place alongside more traditional categories of social stratification and
organization. However little has been said about the uses of the cultural approach to the sociological study of mental
disorder and even less about what contributions such an approach might be able to make to psychiatric and clinical
psychological practice. Here I argue that cultural sociology not only provides the dimension of 'meaning' often
overlooked in much sociology of mental disorder, but that it also has an important contribution to make to clinical
practice and the practical business of understanding patients who are experiencing this and other idioms of mental
disorder.
An Exploration of Facebook and Mental Health
Howard, K.
(Buckinghamshire New University)
This paper reports on the findings of a study exploring the relationship between use of the social network site
Facebook and mental health. Drawing on qualitative semi-structured interviews and focus groups with people in the
UK diagnosed with a variety of mental health conditions, including those understood as 'severe and enduring,' the
paper explores the positive and negative aspects of using Facebook on individuals' mental health. Benefits of
Facebook use included amelioration of loneliness and isolation, gaining implicit social support and capital,
reconstruction of the self after a crisis and the option of a 'middle realm' of low intensity communication. Facebook
could be a negative environment for people experiencing psychosis, exacerbating paranoia. People who experienced
mania regretted their posts while manic. All participants found strategic ways of managing Facebook whilst unwell.
Themes from this partially grounded and participatory study exploring peoples' accounts of their lived experiences will
be detailed alongside key themes raised that draw on the social media literature. For example, the study explores the
usefulness of core concepts to explain people who experience mental health issues' encounters with Facebook, such
as the ways in which people have negotiated the blurring of public and private; experience social capital through
'networked publics' and engage in identity management on the social networking site.
As well as asking about the impact of Facebook on mental health, the research explores the strategies people use to
enhance their well-being and manage their mental health on the social networking site.
BSA Annual Conference 2015 68
Glasgow Caledonian University