Mental health support needs of people with a learning difficulty: a medical or a social model?

@article{Williams2005MentalHS,
  title={Mental health support needs of people with a learning difficulty: a medical or a social model?},
  author={Val Williams and Pauline Heslop},
  journal={Disability \& Society},
  year={2005},
  volume={20},
  pages={231 - 245}
}
People with learning difficulties, like all disabled people, face social oppression. Much recent policy and practice are underpinned by at least some understanding of this oppression, and the social model of disability has been influential in discussions of services and supports for people with learning difficulties. However, in the area of mental health, the picture is somewhat different. This paper argues that the medical model has predominated in discussions of mental health support for… 
View on Taylor & Francis
51 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
4
Background Citations
21
Methods Citations
1

51 Citations

The formal support experiences of family carers of people with an intellectual disability who also display challenging behaviour and/or mental health issues

  • Neil James
  • Medicine, Psychology
    Journal of intellectual disabilities : JOID
  • 2013
An overview of the reported experiences of family carers from recent research studies, about their own support of a person with an intellectual disability who displays challenging behaviour and/or has a mental health problem is provided.

People with learning difficulties and their healthcare encounters

Tensions between individual and social models in accounting for the healthcare experiences of people with learning difficulties are exposed, demonstrating how situational and contextual factors mediate experiences, re-emphasising the importance of the social model of disability.

Filling the Emotional Gap at Transition: Young People with Learning Difficulties and Friendship

Young people with learning disabilities frequently experience mental health support needs, especially at the transition stages as they move into adulthood. The Count Us In inquiry (Carpenter, 2002)…

Voices from the silence : a qualitative study giving voice to adults with learning disabilities who have experience as service users with mental health needs

The main conclusions drawn from this research project are that some findings from this project resonate with findings from previous studies; and have potential implications for policy makers, service providers and service users.

Commentary: enabling good emotional support for and with people with learning disabilities

Purpose Picking up from Cotter et al.’s article on the transferential process, the purpose of this paper is to set out some arguments about the ways of meeting the emotional needs of people…

Mental health services for children and young people with learning disabilities

This briefing paper draws on a review of the literature on prevention and treatment interventions for children and young people with learning disabilities and mental health support needs to draw on a National Care Pathway for mental health services for children withLearning disabilities.

Access to and experience of child and adolescent mental health services: barriers to children and young people with learning disabilities and their families

A literature review draws on the findings of a literature review and reports a number of barriers and their impact on children and young people with learning disabilities.

ETHICAL ISSUES IN COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH PEOPLE WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

A case study demonstrates the benefits of using an integrated approach to therapy and supports the need for the counsellor to have knowledge of the issues faced by people with ID and explores the way forward for the field.

Quality of Life in Persons with Intellectual Disabilities and Mental Health Problems: An Explorative Study

The results offer some proof for the assumption that the QOL construct seems to have universal properties, and revealed that the natural and professional network members are challenged to look for the most appropriate support strategies, taking specific indicators of QOL into account.

Experiences of mental health professionals providing services to adults with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems: A systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative research studies

The findings of this review identified the issues mental health professionals raised in relation to their work and identified organisational issues that need to be addressed to improve staff morale and efficiency.
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 46 REFERENCES

Mental health services and young people with intellectual disability: is it time to do better?

  • J. MccarthyJ. Boyd
  • Medicine, Psychology
    Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR
  • 2002
The key finding was that the great majority of subjects with persistent challenging behaviour from childhood into adult life and those with an established childhood psychiatric disorder received no specialist mental health care.

Adults with Learning Disabilities and Mental Health Needs: Conceptual and Service Issues

Recent developments in clinical diagnostic assessment, needs assessment, care planning, outcome monitoring, staff training and service evaluation are discussed, including the possible advantages of the care programme approach (CPA).

Psychosocial interventions for adults with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems: A review

Issues concerned with adapting psychosocial interventions for people with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems are discussed, focusing on issues of informed consent and assessment of suitability for CBT.

The emotional lives of people with learning disability

There is evidence to suggest the presence of a significantly higher level of emotional developmental problems and disturbance in people with learning disability.

Mental health training and development needs of community agency staff.

A study designed to identify the training needs of staff working within a broad range of agencies found that joint working with specialist mental health services was almost universally problematic and all groups identified a range of training needs.

The classification of problem behaviour in Diagnostic Criteria for Psychiatric Disorders for Use with Adults with Learning Disabilities/Mental Retardation (DC-LD).

  • G. O'brien
  • Medicine, Psychology
    Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR
  • 2003
It is proposed that the adoption of diagnostic criteria for problem behaviour offers the possibility of improved services for the individuals concerned, with resultant improvements in their adaptation and social inclusion.

Going social: Championing a holistic model of mental distress within professional education

Within the context of current debates as to how to raise the profile of social perspectives within mental health social work education, this paper seeks to assemble various elements that might belong…

Utility of the Brief Symptom Inventory in the Assessment of Psychological Distress

The study illustrates that the BSI could be employed as a brief multitrait assessment instrument and as a treatment outcome measure with people with an intellectual disability and demonstrates how the Positive Symptom Total index effectively discriminates between study groups.

Therapy and learning difficulties : advocacy, participation, and partnership

Introduction: changing reflections PART I. Towards Advocacy: Differing Viewpoints and Changing Times: An old story A historical review of learning difficulties, remedial therapy and the rise of the…

Group processes involved in coming to terms with a mentally retarded identity.

An alternative method of dealing with stigma is presented, namely, group therapy based on the two paradigms of loss and consciousness raising, where seven group members passed through six stages: denial, statement, recognition, exploration, meaning, and acceptance.