Monitoring deliberate self-harm presentations to general hospitals

Monitoring of deliberate self-harm (DSH) presentations to hospitals (and in other settings) is receiving increased attention in many countries. This is due to greater recognition of the size of the problem and awareness of its relevance to suicide prevention policy initiatives, because of the strong association between DSH and suicide. A system for monitoring all DSH presentations has been in place in the general hospital in Oxford for 30 years. Based on our experience, in this paper we describe procedures for monitoring, including case definition and identification, linkage of persons and episodes in order to investigate repetition of DSH and other outcomes (including deaths), and data protection and ethical issues. We also provide details of how to carry out monitoring, including different models of data collection, and what data to collect. Finally we consider the potential uses of the data for both clinical and research purposes, including evaluation of national suicide prevention initiatives.     

Women and Mental Health A Feminist Review

This article contextualizes some of the more specifically focused articles in this Special Issue of ‘Women and Mental Health’ by reviewing general historical and political currents structuring contemporary discussions around questions of models, treatment and provision for women within British mental health services. We highlight some particularities of the current British context (in relation to other national scenes) in terms of the forms and expressions of feminist activity around mental or emotional distress. While not absolute mirrors of each other, resonances between general trends in feminist debates and organizational forms within feminist mental health work give rise to a wide spectrum of sites of intervention. We discuss some of the conditions that gave rise to these forms of (visible) feminist intervention within mental health service provision, focusing particularly on women's counselling and therapy services, and we offer an analysis of the range and conceptual tensions within which such interventions may be situated, including contested perspectives on power and empowerment. We also consider ways in which women's political activity around mental health issues is likely not to be noticed as such, given women's prototypical positions as patients and practitioners. We end by identifying what we see as current challenges for feminist activism around distress and its links with the conditions of women's lives and oppression more generally, not only as instances of more general tensions and challenges within contemporary feminisms, but also as offering an arena of opportunity for broader alliance and coalition-building.     

DESIRING YOUNG LES(BI)AN VISIONARIES IN THE ARCHIVE

This paper presents a critically reflexive account of the experiences of a group of researchers at the Canadian Women's Movement Archives. Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, Claire Colebrook, and Victoria Hesford, it argues that the researchers shared intensely embodied and emotional encounters with the archival record of lesbians’ struggles to create and define community. These encounters encouraged the researchers to explore the potential of their own sexual subjectivities. Their deepened understanding of the complex lesbian and feminist past provided them with the desire to reconsider the collective promise of ‘lesbian’ and ‘bisexual’ for their own future community.