Work and the Mental Health Crisis in Britain (eBook)

Carl Walker is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Brighton. His research and teaching interests include social inequality and mental distress, cultural representations of mental health, and critical community approaches to psychology. He is course leader for the MA in Community Psychology and is currently engaged in work around employment, personal debt and mental distress. His previous publications include Depression and Globalisation (2007). Ben Fincham is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex. He has been involved with developing projects on 'mobilities' and qualitative approaches to studying work in unstable employment environments, and his current research focuses on the complex relationship between work and mental health. He is co-author of Mobile Methodologies (2010).

About the Contributors ix

Acknowledgements xi

Chapter 1 Introduction: Mental Health, Emotional

Well-Being and 21st Century Work 1

Chapter 2 Getting Britain Back to Work: A Policy Perspective 11

Chapter 3 Mental Health and Work-Experiences of Work
Ben Fincham, Carl Walker with Holly Easlick 39

Chapter 4 Techniques of Identity Governance and Resistance:

Formulating the Neoliberal Worker
Carl Walker, Ben Fincham with Josh Cameron 67

Chapter 5 Managing Mental Health in Organizations 97

Chapter 6 Work/Life Balance and the Individualized

Responsibility of the Neoliberal Worker 133

Chapter 7 Concluding Thoughts: Neoliberalism and the Shrine of Work 147

References 163

Index 179

"While this book is designed for academics and professionals who work in the mental health sphere, it is so well written and so clearly sincere that it makes it extremely accessible to anyone with a general interest in the subject." (RoSPA Occupational Safety & Health Journal, 10 February 2012)

With the costs of mental ill health and stress in the workplace
estimated at nearly £27m per annum in terms of sickness
absence and presenteeism, work, health and wellbeing has become a
major business issue. The Foresight Report on Mental Capital and
Wellbeing (Cooper et al [2009], Wiley-Blackwell) and Dame
Carol Black's work and health report, have both emphasized
what this excellent and timely book is arguing: that working people
are suffering and something needs to be done.

--Cary L. Cooper, Distinguished Professor of
Organizational Psychology and Health, Lancaster University
Management School, UK

Set in the context of a critique of neo liberal political
economy, this book should be read by all those who hold up work as
a means to improved well-being, without due regard to what kind of
work is available to those for whom it is prescribed.

--Theo Nichols, Distinguished Research
Professor, Cardiff University, UK