Transforming mental health services

Pullman et al (2025) consider how social work could contribute to the transformation in mental health services from a predominately medical approach to a balanced, evidenced-based biopsychosocial approach to care, as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) (see eg, its 2022 World Mental Health Report). Services need to provide person-centred, human rights-based and recovery-orientated care.

As Pullman et al say

Critical Psychiatry stands as a minority movement within contemporary psychiatry, providing a critical analysis of the Medical Model. Its primary focus lies in addressing the inclination of a reductionistic Medical Model to dehumanize care …. In contrast, Critical Psychiatry advocates for a relational, recovery-oriented, and multi-cultural treatment approach, operating within the framework of a comprehensive biopsychosocial paradigm 

Pullman et al conclude by advocating several practical strategies to support the transformation agenda:-

(1) Consistent advocacy for the biopsychosocial model within mental health policy and educational curricula. 

(2) A renewed emphasis on teaching, training and supervising biopsychosocial approaches within professional education. The Biopsychosocial model has a long history but has struggled to gain a consistently prominent position within mental health work often in the face of bio-medical hegemony within psychiatry.

(3) To prioritize the voices and experiences of those with lived experience of mental ill health and mental distress, either directly or as part of families and social groups. Too often, mentally ill people have experienced inadequate treatment and, at times, abuse and oppression. This situation has not improved adequately, despite the inception of modern psychiatric practice.