Power and Control in Mental Health Social Work : Community Care and Involuntary Intervention.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jobling, Hannah.

Series:

Research in Social Work Series

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (187 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bristol : Policy Press, 2026.

Summary:

Control forms the basis for much social work practice, yet the realities of how much control is exercised in everyday practice often remains hidden. Combining original research with critical analysis, this book reveals how ethical frameworks, agency and interaction influence decisions - and how control can produce paradoxical, unexpected outcomes.

Contents:

Front Cover

Half Title

Series Information

Title page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Table of Contents

List of figures and tables

About the authors

Introduction: Virtuous authority? Power and control in practice

Care and control in social work

Power and its relationship to control

Control as part of mental health practice

Control mechanisms in community mental health services

CTOs in an English context

The statutory characteristics, criteria and protocols for CTOs in England

The theoretical orientation of this book

Outline of the book

Conclusion

Note

1 Theorising power and control

Power, knowledge and ethics

Governmentality

Governmentality as an analytical framework for power

Power and the fact-​value relationship in research

Drawing up an analytical map for the study of CTOs

Drawing up a methodological map for the study of CTOs

2 Control and community mental health practice

The rise of compulsory community care

Deinstitutionalisation and its consequences for compulsory community care

Troubled or troubling individuals?

The will to empower

The biomedical foundation for CTO use

The role of insight in the justification of CTOs

In and out of the community: the language of CTOs

Risk and recovery in practice: perspectives and experiences of practitioners and service users

Decision-​making and reasoning on CTOs

Service user responses to the CTO process

The therapeutic relationship

3 A virtual asylum? The various meanings of compulsion in the community

Self and the CTO

On shifting ground: the consequences of mental distress

Identity formation in the face of adversity

Service users' perceptions of what the CTO could do for them

Provision

Risk

Recovery

Maintenance.

The CTO as a barrier: accounts of ambivalence and resentment

'Anti-​purposes'

Cross-​purposes

Coming to a view on CTOs: practitioner perspectives

Policy and practice

Practice beliefs and the CTO

An ethical balancing act

4 Experiencing control: how service users navigated CTOs

The service user-​practitioner relationship

What do they know? Professional expertise and the making of trust

The nature of the service user-​practitioner relationship and the CTO

Service users' experiences of discharge from hospital onto the CTO

Early understanding and involvement in the decision-​making process

Changes in service user understanding of the CTO over time

Understanding the CTO process: conditions

Beliefs about conditions

Medication and consent

Understanding the CTO process: recall

Beliefs about recall

Interaction and action in the recall process

5 Enacting control: the purpose and practices of CTOs

Putting CTOs into action: practitioners' experiences of their use

The practitioner perspective on discharge from hospital onto the CTO

The influence of team culture on discharge

Shared decision-​making

Practitioners' use of conditions

Lawfulness, feasibility and ethicality

Relational work within CTO conditions

Medication, adherence and risk management

Practitioners' use of recall

Practical and ethical challenges in recall: disjointed services and care

Blurring boundaries through recall

Negotiation and mitigation in the recall process

Distinguishing between 'recallable' and 'non-​recallable' cases

6 Sense of an ending: deciding when to relinquish control

Negotiating discharge

Holding on or giving hope

Evidence and trust

CTO cycles

Discharge dilemmas and balancing acts

Dependency vs responsibility.

Engagement vs alienation

7 Practice paradoxes and (perverse) consequences

CTO 'ends': self-​work, change and consequences

Acceptance of CTO means and ends: the contrasting cases of Nick and James

Resistance to CTO means but acceptance of ends: Irene

Resistance to CTO ends but acceptance of means: Simon

Resistance to CTO ends and means: the contrasting cases of Andrew and Craig

8 Reconciling control

The thinking and doing of CTOs

Assembling rationalities for introducing the CTO

Thinking the CTO through

Interaction and influence in CTO practice

The pluralistic unfolding of surface-​level practice

Weighing up change

Implications for social work practice

The interplay between (and within) policy, practitioner and service user 'ends'

The role of relationship in mediating coercion under the CTO

Questioning the conflation of control and coercion

The role of institutional and cultural factors

Balancing the varying consequences of CTOs in decision-​making

Appendix: How the study was conducted

Research design

Methods

Interviews

Observations

Document analysis

Analysis

Fieldwork considerations: participants

Trusts and teams: recruitment, selection and characteristics

Practitioner participants: recruitment, selection and characteristics

Service user participants: recruitment, selection and characteristics

Fieldwork considerations: ethics

Ethical reflexivity in fieldwork

Summary

References

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Jobling, Hannah Power and Control in Mental Health Social Work

ISBN:

9781447369547

OCLC:

1595737575