Poverty and Serious Mental Illness: Toward Action on a Seemingly Intractable Problem

Abstract

This paper examines the issue of poverty among people with serious mental illness (SMI), positioning it as a key issue to be confronted by community mental health systems and practitioners. The paper reviews three perspectives on poverty, considering how each sheds light on poverty among people with SMI, and their implications for action: (a) monetary resources, (b) basic needs, and (c) capabilities. The paper argues that community mental health programs and systems are currently unable to address poverty as they are overly focused on individual-level interventions that, on their own, cannot raise people out of poverty. The paper calls for a social justice value, informed by the concept of citizenship, as a necessary complement to the recovery concept that has informed community mental health practice for almost 25 years. Finally, the paper argues that community psychologists, with their concepts, methods, and values, are well positioned to contribute to this important issue. However, it also contends that addressing poverty requires collaboration from community psychologists with researchers and practitioners from other fields and domains of expertise to begin to make progress.

Surviving versus living life: Capabilities and service use among adults with mental health problems and histories of homelessness

“…However, few services enabled participants to live life, with some even impeding this freedom. The perceived ineffectiveness of services in helping people with mental health problems and histories of homelessness to move forward in life is, at least partially, the result of health and social services being unable to overcome structural issues, such as affordable housing shortages (Sylvestre et al, ) – an observation also made by some participants. As a result, some of the unfreedoms associated with poverty and social exclusion experienced by people with mental health problems are not or can only minimally be addressed by existing service systems.…”

“…However, there is growing scepticism about whether recovery‐oriented mental health services will achieve the transformational outcomes that they have sought (e.g., Hopper, ). The prioritisation of individual‐level recovery outcomes neglects the structural barriers that people with mental health problems encounter, such as poverty (Frederick, Tarasoff, Voronka, Costa, & Kidd, ; Sylvestre, Notten, Kerman, Polillo, & Czechowki, ). The capabilities approach, as developed by Sen () and Nussbaum (, ), has been proposed as an alternative framework for measuring well‐being among marginalised populations, including people with mental health problems.…”

Unconscious Bias and the Diagnosis of Disruptive Behavior Disorders and ADHD in African American and Hispanic Youth

“…In addition to the stress of working in demanding clinical environments, a sense of powerlessness in treating patients who are subjected to adverse social situations and inadequate resources can also contribute to burnout [70,71]. This can be particularly true for those working with patients affected by severe mental health conditions [72].…”

Mental Health Evaluation of Poor College Students: Evidences From China

“…Scholars such as Ware & Strand (1981) use different indicators to judge whether the respondents have psychological problems (Aarons, 2004;Gandek, Ware, Aaronson et al, 1998;Hays & Morales, 2001;Strand, Dalgard, Tambs et al, 2003). Sylvestre, Notten, Kerman, et al (2017), Haurat & Liu (2017) believe that the mental health of college students includes: correct outlook on life, values, worldview; good communication skills with the outside world; a tolerant attitude, a broad mind, and a noble personality. There are many factors that affect College Students 's mental health.…”