Mental Health

Mental Health is an accessible introductory textbook aimed primarily at nursing and health care students who are not in the mental health field of practice but are seeking to understand mental health and become rounded practitioners. It will also be useful as a broad introduction for mental health nursing students.

Through clear explanations, examples and activities, the book will help you to recognise and support people with mental health issues whenever they are encountered in your practice. You will learn:

• What mental health is and how it interacts with physical health
• About different theories and models that are applied to understanding mental illness
• How to relate to and communicate with people experiencing mental health problems
• How to recognise the common diagnosable mental health disorders and understand the treatments and interventions that are applied to them
• About the impact that mental health issues can have on people at different stages of life, from childhood to adulthood and later life
• How to apply legal and ethical frameworks and to assess risk when supporting people with mental health issues.

Written by a team of highly experienced mental health academics and practitioners, this book will help you to develop the underpinning knowledge and skills you need and to apply them in your own field of practice.

Essentials is a series of accessible, introductory textbooks for students in nursing, health and social care. New and forthcoming titles in the series:

The Care Process
Communication Skills
Leadership
Mental Health
Promoting Health and Wellbeing
Study Skills

About the Editors

Angelina is Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing at the University of Salford. She began her career as a general nurse in 1986, working in surgery. She later retrained as a mental health nurse and progressed into a variety of mental health nursing clinical and management roles within acute inpatient, older people and community practitioner areas. She moved into education as a training manager in an NHS Mental Health Trust, and then into higher education as a nurse lecturer in 2010. She is currently a module leader in the pre-registration degree nursing programme and teaches on both pre-registration and post graduate programmes. Her keen interest is around physical health in mental health. Angelina has published in a variety of nursing journals and textbooks.

Neil started his career as a mental health practitioner in 1980. He trained as a mental health nurse and then as a behaviour therapist, working predominantly in a community role and latterly, in his active practice, working closely with families. Neil is Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing at the University of Salford and has worked in Higher Education since 2002, leading and developing new programmes aimed at enhancing the quality of training offered to nurses and also to cognitive behaviour therapists and advanced clinical practitioners.

Neil's main drive has been to equip as many people as possible in health care with mental health orientated skills in order to enhance care and foster client choice, empowerment and opportunity. His PhD focused on the influence of media representations on mental health practitioners and Neil has published in many nursing journals and textbooks. His publications include 'Experiences of ACP in training and the supervisors using a hub and spoke model' published in Practice Nursing.