Mary Boyle

A Straight Talking Introduction to the Power Threat Meaning Framework

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A Scientific Delusion?

Schizophrenia

The idea of "schizophrenia" as a disease has become profoundly influential both within the medical profession and amongst the general public. So strong is this idea that those who criticize it are apt to be dismissed as being either ignorant of the latest research or indifferent to the fate of the "mentally ill". This book challenges such ideas by offering a detailed critique of the origins and development of the concept and diagnosis of schizophrenia. Mary Boyle shows how such diagnoses did and still do rely on opinion rather than evidence, how they were characterized by conceptual confusion, and how subsequent research has been misrepresented. She therefore questions the validity of schizophrenia as illness, but emphasizes thatm this is not to deny the existence of bizarre behaviour. She offers alternative interpretations of such behaviour, and points out the need to ask searching questions about the labelling of some behaviour as symptomatic of mental illness. By focusing not on schizophrenics, but on those who diagnose schizophrenia, this book will undoubtedly attract some criticism and debate. Yet her approach allows the author to question traditional interpretations of bizarre behaviour, and to make more central the social and ethical issues which surround it.

Drawing on ideas from sociology, politics, anthropology and law as well as psychology, this book shows how abortion is linked to sexual behaviour and motherhood in the complex web of gender and power relations.

Psychology, Gender, Power, and the Law

Re-thinking Abortion

Lucy Johnstone

The current mainstream way of describing psychological and emotional distress assumes it is the result of medical illnesses that need diagnosing and treating. This book summarises the Power Threat Meaning Framework as an alternative to psychiatric diagnosis - an alternative that asks not 'What's wrong with you?' but 'What's happened to you?'

An Alternative to Psychiatric Diagnosis

An examination of four written accounts of medieval pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

Writing the Jerusalem Pilgrimage in the Late Middle Ages

This volume is a comprehensive collection of critical essays on The Taming of the Shrew, and includes extensive discussions of the play's various printed versions and its theatrical productions. Aspinall has included only those essays that offer the most influential and controversial arguments surrounding the play. The issues discussed include gender, authority, female autonomy and unruliness, courtship and marriage, language and speech, and performance and theatricality.

The Power Threat Meaning Framework is a new perspective on why people sometimes experience a whole range of forms of distress, confusion, fear, despair, and troubled or troubling behaviour. It is an alternative to the more traditional models based on psychiatric diagnosis. It was co-produced with service users and applies not just to people who have been in contact with the mental health or criminal justice systems, but to all of us. The Framework summarises and integrates a great deal of evidence about the role of various kinds of power in people's lives; the kinds of threat that misuses of power pose to us; and the ways we have learned as human beings to respond to threat. In traditional mental health practice, these threat responses are sometimes called 'symptoms'. The Framework also looks at how we make sense of these difficult experiences, and how messages from wider society can increase our feelings of shame, self-blame, isolation, fear and guilt. The main aspects of the Framework are summarised in these questions, which can apply to individuals, families or social groups: 'What has happened to you?' (How is Power operating in your life?) 'How did it affect you?' (What kind of Threats does this pose?) 'What sense did you make of it?' (What is the Meaning of these situations and experiences to you?) 'What did you have to do to survive?' (What kinds of Threat Response are you using?) In addition, the two questions below help us to think about what skills and resources people might have, and how we might pull all these ideas and responses together into a personal narrative or story: 'What are your strengths?' (What access to Power resources do you have?) 'What is your story?' (How does all this fit together?)

Towards the Identification of Patterns in Emotional Distress, Unusual Experiences and Troubled Or Troubling Behaviour, as an Alternative to Functional Psychiatric Diagnosis

The Power Threat Meaning Framework

This is an overview of The Power Threat Meaning Framework, which is a new perspective on why people sometimes experience a whole range of forms of distress, confusion, fear, despair, and troubled or troubling behaviour. It is an alternative to the more traditional models based on psychiatric diagnosis. It was co-produced with service users and applies not just to people who have been in contact with the mental health or criminal justice systems, but to all of us. The Framework summarises and integrates a great deal of evidence about the role of various kinds of power in people's lives; the kinds of threat that misuses of power pose to us; and the ways we have learned as human beings to respond to threat. In traditional mental health practice, these threat responses are sometimes called 'symptoms'. The Framework also looks at how we make sense of these difficult experiences, and how messages from wider society can increase our feelings of shame, self-blame, isolation, fear and guilt. ﻿This overview publication is structured as follows: Part 1: Summary of the PTM Framework, its core principles, purposes and scope. This brief summary orients the reader to the main features of the PTM Framework. Part 2: Summary of theory and research underpinning the PTM Framework. This briefly recaps some of the conclusions from the literature on the role of factors from various fields, including biological, psychological, social, political and cultural, in the origins and persistence of emotional distress and troubling behaviour. Part 3: The Power Threat Meaning Framework. This demonstrates how theory and research can be used to support a meta-approach, the Power Threat Meaning Framework. The relationship between the various elements of the PTM Framework is illustrated through the Foundational Power Threat Meaning Pattern. Part 4: Provisional General Patterns arising out of the Foundational Pattern. Some General Patterns that emerge from the Foundational Power Threat Meaning Pattern are outlined. These patterns can be used as a basis and resource for the co-construction of new personal and social narratives, as well as suggesting alternatives to diagnosis for service delivery/administrative/legal/service planning/research and related purposes. Part 5: Personal narratives within the Power Threat Meaning Framework. The role, purpose and possible formats of personal narratives within the PTM Framework are illustrated and discussed, along with options for non-medical language use.

Mary Boyle

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