And B.K.; data curation, K.J., T.R., M.H.; writing—original draft preparation; writing—review and editing; visualization; supervision, K.J.; project administration, K.J.; funding acquisition, K.J. And B.K., formal analysis, K.J.; investigation, K.J.; resources, K.J, T.R., M.H., K.A. Thanks to the university college Diakonissestiftelsen Foundation and Department of Public Health, Nursing and Health Care, Aarhus University for the time taken to write this article. This method of examining the data material may therefore exclude other relevant angles and views. Although we obtained rich material, a larger-scale study with the inclusion of several psychiatric wards and municipalities could further expand the findings. The users were recruited from a network who work to develop psychiatry and were very motivated to participate in the project and share their views.
What mental health nurses have to say about themselves: A discourse analysis
This may be partly due to ethical considerations of access and the use of sensitive data (for exceptions, see, for example, Lavie and Nakash) . There is an increasing emphasis in psychology and psychiatry on participatory research, including with vulnerable demographic groups . These are just a few examples of previous and ongoing sociolinguistic research, and in this special collection we welcome contributions that apply different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches in sociolinguistics. For example, Ziółkowskaa and Galasiński, examine the narratives of children of fathers who died by suicide and how they deal with both bereavement of their deceased parent and the stigma attached to death by suicide .
Ten professionals (nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, physicians and social workers) from a mental health hospital and eight professionals (nurses, educators and social workers) from community mental health participated. The last decade has shown the positive outcomes to be gained from users’ knowledge in the development of new initiatives or products that arise jointly between different professional groups and the users of mental health services in hospitals and municipalities 16,17,18. A network meeting includes the user, relatives (optionally), professionals from the mental health hospital who have been involved in users’ treatment and community mental health professionals who will follow up with the user after discharge. Despite the aim in Denmark of focusing on professional efforts on the basis of looking towards recovery, there are still challenges in ensuring a coherent effort directed at recovery across mental health hospitals and community mental healthcare 4,12. The professionals do not agree on how to interpret the user’s mental and social challenge with a mental illness. In addition, five users with experience in mental health services in both sectors participated.
Editorial: Understanding public discourse for digital mental health promotion
These findings suggest thatparticular discourses can function differently in public mental health debates andthat they cannot be unambiguously judged as either exclusively problematic andstigmatizing or exclusively good and empowering. For example, instead of “stigma,” conceptssuch as “discrimination,” “violation of rights,” and “social exclusion” are usedto describe experiences of repression, criminalization or exclusion in societyand the mental health care system. The terminology used inthese articles differs from the terms traditionally dominating publicdiscussions of mental health/illness. Finally, a small number of articles discusses how social inequalities and powerdifferentials in our societies affect the mental wellbeing and mental healthcare of marginalized groups.
- Consequently, public mental health is not just about the occurrence and prevention of mental disorders in the population, but also includes the promotion of mental health and wellbeing (2).
- We conduct a systematic screening with each patient to assess the risk of extroverted behaviour or the need for coercion and here recovery could be part of the conversations(HPH).
- The last approach to discourse foregrounds how mental health is constructed through social practices.
- For example, in cases where people who need professional help distrust thesystem (e.g., due to psychotic episodes), putting the responsibility to ask forand find professional help mainly with the individual in mental distress (andtheir close environment) might hamper their chance of getting the appropriatecare.
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Mental health and mental health stigma are “socially and discursively constituted” with a bidirectional Brand generosity and mental health relationship between discourse and social practices. ’ in relation to sociolinguistic research on mental health and stigma and outline some ways in which this growing area of research could meaningfully contribute to broader professional practice in psychology and psychiatry. Specifically, sociolinguistics provides well-established methodological tools to research the ‘voices’ of people with a history of mental ill health, their family, carers and mental health professionals in both online and off-line contexts. Mind is warning that an increasingly negative public discourse, from politicians and in the media, around mental health risks undoing the progress in attitudes and stigma achieved in recent years.
Researchers have suggested that this discourse includes young people being branded as “workshy” and accused of misusing the welfare system. Using data from 1,563 respondents who took part in the 2024 wave of the Attitudes to Mental Illness survey, the research shows that stigma worsened significantly between 2023 and 2024. Many highly relevant aspects of modern service provision, such as patient choice, service user empowerment and respect for human rights, are hardly ever covered by health information systems (62).
In this special collection we welcome contributions that demonstrate the value of sociolinguistic research and how it could enhance existing research and practice in psychology and psychiatry. Sociolinguistic research has much to contribute to elucidating these dominant ideologies and support organizations targeting men’s mental health (e.g. Mind UK or Manup). Societal ideologies around men as strong and powerful often stop men from seeking help and opening up about their mental health struggles. For example, Price uses corpus linguistics and CDA to interrogate news reports on mental health in the UK from 1984 to 2014 . Another common sociolinguistic approach is critical discourse analysis (CDA) 24, 25.



