What makes The New Mental Health?

The New Mental Health was defined by Mark Brown, editor of One in Four magazine, in a keynote speech to the Asia Pacific Conference on Mental Health in Perth Western Australia on June 14th 2012.

The New Mental Health is not so much a movement, but a broad range of projects, organisations and services that are moving in similar directions.

Broadly, the defining characteristics of the new mental health are:

  • The New Mental Health is pragmatic not ideological
    The New Mental Health blurs the old boundaries between people who provide services and people who receive them
  • The New Mental Health come from outside of (in the UK), the NHS or large providers
  • The New Mental Health is not usually about campaigning
  • The New Mental Health works with non-medical aspects of people’s experience
  • The New Mental Health constantly struggles for existence
  • The New Mental Health is not still fighting old wars
  • The New Mental Health is directly responsive to needs, and
    The New Mental Health generates real opportunities for people

One of the over arching qualities of the New Mental Health is that it is pragmatic and focuses on getting things to happen by which ever method is best.

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