Gender and Mental Health - by Pauline Prior (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Gender and Mental Health provides a critical introduction to the ways in which gender affects mental health experiences and mental health service use. The volume is unique in including a policy perspective and an overview-including a look at crime, the law, and service structures-of society's responses to mental disorders.
Recent research has challenged basic assumptions that women are more prone than men to mental disorders, and has highlighted the increasing visibility of men in psychiatric statistics in the twentieth century. Yet, gender differences continue to be intertwined with risk factors in socioeconomic conditions and in biased approaches to diagnosis and treatment.
Prior here examines the individual experiences of mental disorders for both men and women and explores a range of mental health policy issues including concepts of normality, trends in mental health care legislation and service delivery, the differing impacts of national mental health policies on women and on men, and changing views of disorders linked with sexual identity and orientation.
Based on up-to-date information from both the United States and Europe, this volume will be useful to a broad range of scholars and professionals in psychology, sociology, social policy, gender studies, social work, medicine, and law.

Review Quotes

"[Sato] sets out to tell Japanese readers how their country looks from the U.S. and why--in his opinion--some American criticisms of Japan are right ... [Sato] strikes gold with a list of things Japan can do to put itself right with the rest of the world."-"Far Eastern Economic Review",

"Sato knows both Japanese realities and American dissatisfactions. He sees things from a rare vantage point. Some Japanese may feel he is too critical of Japan, while more Americans may think he overly values the Japanese model. But both can learn much from his book and, after reading it, will be convinced that he talks a great deal of sense and conclude that united, the two nations stand to gain, divided, to lose." -Masamichi Hanabusa, Former Japanese Consul General, author of "Trade Problems Between Japan and Western Europe"