Challenges to Mental Health in Europe

Human beings are social animals, and social psychiatry is a key discipline within psychiatry around the world. The impact of social factors on the genesis and perpetuation of mental illnesses and maintenance of well-being of individuals and families is well recognized. Exploring social factors is the key to understanding aetiology and developing therapeutic interventions. Social psychiatry has led to deinstitutionalization and the setting up of community mental health teams. This has further helped develop home treatments, early interventions, crisis interventions, and so on. In addition to social interventions at individual, family, and community levels, social psychiatry has led the way in delivering recovery and improved social functioning. Furthermore, there is increasingly impressive evidence that social determinants and social factors affect the biology of human beings and biology, in turn, influences the social functioning of individuals. Inevitably, social psychiatry encompasses the whole age span. From adverse childhood experiences to connected life in older age groups, social factors play a significant role in the functioning of individuals. This book provides an overview of the history and development of social psychiatry, the social world, social determinants, clinical conditions, and the impact on special vulnerable groups, which is followed by a description of social interventions—old and new—and a critical overview of global mental health and the challenges in different parts of the world, emphasizing that one size does not fit all. The final chapter looks to the future of social psychiatry. This textbook brings together a number of giants of social psychiatry and younger, rising stars.