`This excellent book fills an important gap and will be of interest to the full range of professionals involved in work with people with mental health problems as well as service users and carers...For those managers or education providers looking to base their provision on the 10 Essential Shared Capabilities, this book will be a must.' - Social Work Education `The book is aimed at a range of practitioners. It would be a useful beginner's book for anyone encountering the mental health services for the first time and as a reference book for experienced practitioners. It can be dipped into for specialist advice in areas such as provision of mental health services for women, and for groups such as black and other ethnic service users or for lesbian and gay service users. There are some good diagrams which help to explain the cycle of abuse, and the holistic model of mental health'. - British Journal of Occupational Therapy `Social Perspectives will be a useful addition to the library of both practitioners and students; not just for the well researched individual contributions, but for the extensive reference lists which will provide invaluable assistance to readers wishing to research further. The volume brings together various social perspectives in a coherent manner, emphasizing a move away from simply treating symptoms...Together, these chapters provide an agenda which has to be central to any social change.' - Professional Social Work Social Perspectives in Mental Health offers new practice frameworks that help to make sense of people's mental distress and recovery in relation to their social experience. This interdisciplinary volume promotes a holistic approach to mental health practice, with an emphasis on recovery and empowerment, and on building on the experiences of service users. The contributors explore the impact of social factors, such as power, abuse, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, on the causes and experiences of mental health problems. It is also considered how concepts such as risk and recovery can be understood from a social perspective. Drawing on expertise from a wide range of academic, policy and practice settings as well as lived experience, this book is essential reading for practitioners, students and educators in the fields of mental health and social work.