One can only suppose that a muddle over manuscripts resulted in Gender and Mental Health receiving its title. As an introduction to issues surrounding mental health policy the book is very good indeed, but readers expecting an introduction to gender issues and mental health will be largely disappointed.

In her preface Prior promises to make use of both the older feminist literature and newer work by theorists of masculinity in considering issues surrounding gender and mental health. Prior whets the reader’s appetite for such a study by very briefly discussing recent work that suggests that, when proper attention is paid to alcoholism, substance abuse and personality disorders, men suffer from at least as much mental ill-health as women. If true, these findings are very important. Feminist writers have long taken it as a fact that women are more likely to receive psychiatric diagnoses. In an attempt to explain this “fact”, they have claimed, variously, that feminine characteristics have tended to be pathologized, that women’s life-problems are (unfairly) medicalized, or that women simply have more stressful lives. If the studies Prior cites are correct this entire tradition of feminist work is challenged. Numerous questions arise: Is it right to treat alcoholism, substance abuse and personality disorders (which disproportionately affect men) on a par with mood disorders (which tend to affect women)? How might the fact that men and women tend to suffer from different types of mental disorder be explained? What, if anything, can be salvaged from the feminist literature that took women to be the principal subjects of psychiatric attention? Unfortunately, the reader hoping for answers to these questions, or indeed detailed discussion of any other gender issues, won’t find them in Prior’s book. The (single) chapter devoted to gender issues is short and disappointing.

This being said, Gender and Mental Health also contains a substantial, and very good, introduction to issues surrounding mental health policy. These chapters provide a brief introduction to methods of analysing policy processes, examine trends in the provision of mental health services in Europe and the USA, and discuss the relations between law and mental disorder. Up-to-date, comprehensive and succinct, these sections of the book provide an ideal overview of mental health policy suitable for undergraduates or anyone else wanting a brief introduction to the area.

Rachel Cooper is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bristol, England. She has research interests in the philosophy of science, especially psychiatry, and in 20th century history of psychiatry.

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Categories: Philosophical, MentalHealth, General