| In this unit students are invited to critically examine discourses that dominate and construct their contemporary understandings of mental health, trauma, grief, and loss. These include concepts such as the biomedical discourse, the dominance of the DSM-5 and the emergence of 'troubled-persons industries'. Students will critically engage with models that challenge deficit models of mental health and its mainstream 'treatments', these include critically reflecting on the difference between mental 'health' and mental 'illness'. Students will also consider what might be required to 'decolonise' mental health, or actively embrace 'being mad', as well as reflect on the interconnectedness of spiritual, mental, physical, and environmental health and wellbeing at a local and global level. Students will also be invited to challenge dominant understandings of trauma, grief, and loss experienced by individuals, groups and communities and asked to consider the nature of personal and interpersonal relationships impacting mental health. Students will be encouraged to integrate their knowledge developed over the unit with an emerging professional ethical framework that can be applied in a diverse range of practice settings. These include in clinical and non-clinical contexts, community-based practice, disaster response, and working with First Nations communities. |
