Description

Book Synopsis

Social justice entails equal access to liberties, rights, and opportunities, as well as care for the least advantaged members of society. The paradigm-shifting new book Social (In)Justice and Mental Health addresses the ways in which society's failure to deliver on that humane ideal harms people with mental illness. The editors, at the forefront of the effort to make psychiatry responsive to critiques of institutional racism, argue that in the United States, a perfect storm of unfair and unjust policies and practices, bolstered by deep-seated beliefs about the inferiority of some groups, has led to a small number of people having tremendous advantages, freedoms, and opportunities, while a growing number are denied those liberties and rights. Mental health clinicians bear a special responsibility to be aware of these structural inequities, to question their own biases, to intervene on behalf of patients and their families, and to advocate for mental health equity. To that end, the book provides a framework for thinking about why these inequities exist and persist and provides clinicians with a road map to address these inequalities as they relate to racism, the criminal justice system, and other systems and diagnoses.

The book is hands-on, with topics mental health clinicians will find timely and relevant:

• The role of social injustice and specific diagnoses and conditions, including substance use disorders, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and child trauma, is covered. For example, research has shown that white psychiatrists are more likely to over diagnose schizophrenia in Black patients, and this diagnostic bias may partly account for Black men being involuntarily committed to mental institutions in higher numbers.
• The authors advocate for research that prioritizes the needs of participants and communities, rather than the needs of institutions, and focuses on structural, not individual-level, differences.
• Accompaniment, an important strategy for infusing social justice into clinical practice, is described and modeled. This process of radical empathy—of trying to minimize power dynamics in clinical relationships by listening, witnessing, and advocating with patients—is critically important in confronting mental health inequities.
• The inadequacy of current medical and mental health education and training in countering the powerful forces of social injustice in mental health is discussed in detail. The authors emphasize that change requires adopting an active practice of self-study and self-reflection, and accordingly, a list of self-study resources, consisting of books, documentaries, podcasts, and TED talks, is provided to further the reader's knowledge and awareness.
• Of further assistance are the chapter-ending "Questions for Self-Reflection," which challenge mental health clinicians to examine their own attitudes and preconceived ideas about race, poverty, disabilities, and privilege.

Social (In)Justice and Mental Health addresses the context in which mental health care is delivered, strategies for raising consciousness in the mental health profession, and ways to improve treatment while redressing injustice. Clinicians owe it to themselves, their patients, and their profession to read—and heed—this important work.



Trade Review

Like the rest of American culture, psychiatry is
at a crossroads with respect to race and racism and
its treatment of black, indigenous, and people of
color (BIPOC). The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently apologized for psychiatry's role
in historical direct and indirect acts of racism. In
its apology, the APA wrote that "early psychiatric
practices laid the groundwork for the inequities in
clinical treatment that have historically limited
quality access to psychiatric care for BIPOC The
APA apologizes for our contributions to the structural racism in our nation and pledges to enact
corresponding anti-racist practices."1
Psychiatry's reckoning with its own racist past is
overdue, but what exactly should the path forward
look like? After all, it is easy to decry some of the
overtly racist theories of someone like Benjamin Rush
(whose image graced the APA's logo until 2015), but it
is quite another to systematically explore and expose
the myriad less visible and less overt ways that racism is infused throughout mental health care.
Enter the new volume edited by Drs Ruth Shim
and Sarah Vinson entitled Social (In)Justice and
Mental Health, a book whose timing could not be
more perfect. In this multiauthored volume Shim and
Vinson thoughtfully and comprehensively investigate
the systemic inequities and racist structures that
permeate mental health care in the United States and
that cause—and exacerbate—health disparities and
generally worse outcomes for BIPOC.
Social (In)Justice and Mental Health looks
beneath the surface of mental health care and
offers the most extensive excavation and critique of
the pervasive racism throughout mental health
that we have read. Shim and Vinson describe the
myriad ways in which the mental health field has
not only failed to see racism in its various forms
but has also actually contributed to racial
disparities. These authors tell their readers that
they want "to make the invisible visible" and,
indeed, they do just that.
From its outset, this volume puts standard mental health practice on notice. Shim and Vinson, who
authored or co-authored a majority of the chapters
in this multiauthored book, state that they hold the
mental health field in high esteem and "it is for this
reason that [they] insist on viewing the field with an
unflinchingly critical eye." No matter their personal
feelings about issues of social justice and race, the
authors note that the book is "informed by data
rather than by sentiment."
The authors address the question of whether or
not mental health care workers ought to care about
social injustice. After all, the argument goes,
shouldn't mental health providers confine their
view toward conditions like major depression or
posttraumatic stress disorder or anxiety and not
delve into larger societal questions? Why should
clinicians look at social conditions and determinants of health when those factors were not the
focus of our training?
Shim and Vinson are unequivocal in their answer
to this question. Their position—as is ours—is that
health is more than medicine, and clinical care is
ultimately one small aspect of what factors into
one's health. One's social environment, political
context, and socioeconomic status all play significant roles as well. And racism, as a system that
distributes unequal access to resources, power, and privilege based on a social construct called race, is a
major social determinant of mental health. As the
authors write, "As health care workers, it's impossible for us to divorce our work from the relentless
societal challenges our patients face. We have to
expand our field of intervention beyond the consultation room." Moreover, they add, "The failure to
consider how race and culture intersect class, gender, and socioeconomic issues and how these influences shape diagnostic assessment, treatment, and
health outcomes is yet another example of how
structural racism is built into mental health care."
As seasoned clinicians who have worked extensively
in public settings with many BIPOC patients, we
have seen more times than we can count the ways
in which our patients have suffered from a confluence of factors extending far beyond our clinics.
As such we couldn't agree more with Shim and
Vincent on this observation.
But it is not only social forces at large that can
oppress our patients and cause or contribute to illness. The system of mental health care itself can be
and often is oppressive and part of the problem. As
Shim and Vinson assert, our profession is "shaped
and practiced in the context of oppression, (and) also
plays a major role in perpetuating and sustaining
inequity."
How does our field do this? To start, racial concerns, including overt racism at times, were written into the mental health system in various ways
—including diagnoses replete with biases and
assumptions regarding race—that are largely
invisible to us now. Social (In)Justice and Mental
Health makes clear that considering a diagnosis
apart from the historical, social, and political
considerations that all factor in to how an individual presents to us in any given moment is
dangerous (because it can support and lend credence to what might be racist), naive, and ultimately racist if it ends up bolstering racist attitudes and institutions.
Understanding the racist forces at work within
mental health care in the past enables new
ways of addressing current implications and
identified barriers, including how schizophrenia is
more frequently diagnosed among BIPOC, racial
bias and stereotyping of BIPOC when diagnosing
substance use and personality disorders, and
why BIPOC are disproportionately jailed and
imprisoned in the United States, just to name a
few. We need to hold society and the mental
health system accountable for health disparities
and shift toward practices and policies that result
in fair and equitable mental health care for
everyone.
The book is divided into 4 parts. The first part
addresses some theoretical concerns about social
injustice. The second section addresses systems
and structures that affect mental health. The third
section addresses the ways in which social injustices factor into a number of specific psychiatric
diagnoses, and the final section focuses on how to
move forward to try to effect real change. With
chapters dedicated to federal policies, mental
health, the carceral system (the authors are correct
to refuse to use the term "criminal justice system"
since so much of that system is unjust toward
BIPOC), and public health, this multidisciplinary
work marks a seminal contribution that will pave
the way for further advances in research, theory,
and practice. The book is also meant to cause
readers to introspect and consider their own
thoughts and actions in their daily lives. Along
these lines, at the end of each chapter the authors
include "Questions for Self-Reflection" to help
probe and prod readers to look within and to take
action.
This volume has a number of significant
strengths: It is very well written, comprehensive in
scope, loaded with compelling data, and, as noted
above, it is beyond timely. Readers will learn the
realities of the mental health system and delve into
thoughtful and expansive chapters that promote
both awareness and equity. The data cited in this
volume and the argument that it makes are so
compelling that, once you finish the book, you will
be hard pressed to look at mental health care in the
same way. And not just mental health care—Social
(In)Justice and Mental Health makes it difficult to
look at everyday life in the United States in the
same way as before.
Social (In)Justice and Mental Health is an overt
call to action, including looking beyond the walls of
our clinics and hospitals. As the authors write, "Our
level of engagement in advocacy as mental health
professionals often falls short. As clinicians, we are
charged with supporting patients' progress toward
recovery even when much of what makes them sick
or well cannot be addressed by our staying in our
proverbial lane." We couldn't agree more. In the end, you can't read
Social (In)Justice and Mental Health and not feel
moved to act. And by the way, you need to read
this book.

-- Candy Smith, PhD, and J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD * Journal of Psychiatric Practice *

Table of Contents

Contributors
Foreword
Preface
Part I. Foundations of Social Injustice
Chapter 1. Social (In)Justice and Mental Health
Chapter 2. Social Injustice and the Social Determinants of Mental Health
Chapter 3. Social Injustice and Mental Health Inequities
Chapter 4. Social Injustice and Structural Racism
Part II. Systems and Structures
Chapter 5. Social Injustice and the Schooling System
Chapter 6. Social Injustice and the Child Welfare System
Chapter 7. Social Injustice and Urban Development
Chapter 8. Social Injustice and the Carceral System
Chapter 9. Social Injustice and the Health Care System
Part III. Diagnoses and Conditions
Chapter 10. Social Injustice and Substance Use Disorders
Chapter 11. Social Injustice and Schizophrenia
Chapter 12. Social Injustice and Personality Disorders
Chapter 13. Social Injustice and Child Trauma
Part IV. Achieving Mental Health Equity
Chapter 14. Social Justice and Mental Health System Reform
Chapter 15. Social Justice and Advocacy
Chapter 16. Social Justice and Mental Health: A Call to Action
Index

Social (In)Justice and Mental Health

    Product form

    £35.10

    Includes FREE delivery

    RRP £39.00 – you save £3.90 (10%)

    Order before 4pm tomorrow for delivery by Thu 13 Aug 2026.

    A Paperback / softback by Ruth S. Shim, Sarah Y. Vinson

    Out of stock

      Trusted by thousands of customers. See 2,385+ Customer Reviews

      View other formats and editions of Social (In)Justice and Mental Health by Ruth S. Shim

      Publisher: American Psychiatric Association Publishing
      Publication Date: Publication Date: 07/02/2021
      ISBN13: 9781615373383, 978-1615373383
      ISBN10: 1615373381

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Social justice entails equal access to liberties, rights, and opportunities, as well as care for the least advantaged members of society. The paradigm-shifting new book Social (In)Justice and Mental Health addresses the ways in which society's failure to deliver on that humane ideal harms people with mental illness. The editors, at the forefront of the effort to make psychiatry responsive to critiques of institutional racism, argue that in the United States, a perfect storm of unfair and unjust policies and practices, bolstered by deep-seated beliefs about the inferiority of some groups, has led to a small number of people having tremendous advantages, freedoms, and opportunities, while a growing number are denied those liberties and rights. Mental health clinicians bear a special responsibility to be aware of these structural inequities, to question their own biases, to intervene on behalf of patients and their families, and to advocate for mental health equity. To that end, the book provides a framework for thinking about why these inequities exist and persist and provides clinicians with a road map to address these inequalities as they relate to racism, the criminal justice system, and other systems and diagnoses.

      The book is hands-on, with topics mental health clinicians will find timely and relevant:

      • The role of social injustice and specific diagnoses and conditions, including substance use disorders, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and child trauma, is covered. For example, research has shown that white psychiatrists are more likely to over diagnose schizophrenia in Black patients, and this diagnostic bias may partly account for Black men being involuntarily committed to mental institutions in higher numbers.
      • The authors advocate for research that prioritizes the needs of participants and communities, rather than the needs of institutions, and focuses on structural, not individual-level, differences.
      • Accompaniment, an important strategy for infusing social justice into clinical practice, is described and modeled. This process of radical empathy—of trying to minimize power dynamics in clinical relationships by listening, witnessing, and advocating with patients—is critically important in confronting mental health inequities.
      • The inadequacy of current medical and mental health education and training in countering the powerful forces of social injustice in mental health is discussed in detail. The authors emphasize that change requires adopting an active practice of self-study and self-reflection, and accordingly, a list of self-study resources, consisting of books, documentaries, podcasts, and TED talks, is provided to further the reader's knowledge and awareness.
      • Of further assistance are the chapter-ending "Questions for Self-Reflection," which challenge mental health clinicians to examine their own attitudes and preconceived ideas about race, poverty, disabilities, and privilege.

      Social (In)Justice and Mental Health addresses the context in which mental health care is delivered, strategies for raising consciousness in the mental health profession, and ways to improve treatment while redressing injustice. Clinicians owe it to themselves, their patients, and their profession to read—and heed—this important work.



      Trade Review

      Like the rest of American culture, psychiatry is
      at a crossroads with respect to race and racism and
      its treatment of black, indigenous, and people of
      color (BIPOC). The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently apologized for psychiatry's role
      in historical direct and indirect acts of racism. In
      its apology, the APA wrote that "early psychiatric
      practices laid the groundwork for the inequities in
      clinical treatment that have historically limited
      quality access to psychiatric care for BIPOC The
      APA apologizes for our contributions to the structural racism in our nation and pledges to enact
      corresponding anti-racist practices."1
      Psychiatry's reckoning with its own racist past is
      overdue, but what exactly should the path forward
      look like? After all, it is easy to decry some of the
      overtly racist theories of someone like Benjamin Rush
      (whose image graced the APA's logo until 2015), but it
      is quite another to systematically explore and expose
      the myriad less visible and less overt ways that racism is infused throughout mental health care.
      Enter the new volume edited by Drs Ruth Shim
      and Sarah Vinson entitled Social (In)Justice and
      Mental Health, a book whose timing could not be
      more perfect. In this multiauthored volume Shim and
      Vinson thoughtfully and comprehensively investigate
      the systemic inequities and racist structures that
      permeate mental health care in the United States and
      that cause—and exacerbate—health disparities and
      generally worse outcomes for BIPOC.
      Social (In)Justice and Mental Health looks
      beneath the surface of mental health care and
      offers the most extensive excavation and critique of
      the pervasive racism throughout mental health
      that we have read. Shim and Vinson describe the
      myriad ways in which the mental health field has
      not only failed to see racism in its various forms
      but has also actually contributed to racial
      disparities. These authors tell their readers that
      they want "to make the invisible visible" and,
      indeed, they do just that.
      From its outset, this volume puts standard mental health practice on notice. Shim and Vinson, who
      authored or co-authored a majority of the chapters
      in this multiauthored book, state that they hold the
      mental health field in high esteem and "it is for this
      reason that [they] insist on viewing the field with an
      unflinchingly critical eye." No matter their personal
      feelings about issues of social justice and race, the
      authors note that the book is "informed by data
      rather than by sentiment."
      The authors address the question of whether or
      not mental health care workers ought to care about
      social injustice. After all, the argument goes,
      shouldn't mental health providers confine their
      view toward conditions like major depression or
      posttraumatic stress disorder or anxiety and not
      delve into larger societal questions? Why should
      clinicians look at social conditions and determinants of health when those factors were not the
      focus of our training?
      Shim and Vinson are unequivocal in their answer
      to this question. Their position—as is ours—is that
      health is more than medicine, and clinical care is
      ultimately one small aspect of what factors into
      one's health. One's social environment, political
      context, and socioeconomic status all play significant roles as well. And racism, as a system that
      distributes unequal access to resources, power, and privilege based on a social construct called race, is a
      major social determinant of mental health. As the
      authors write, "As health care workers, it's impossible for us to divorce our work from the relentless
      societal challenges our patients face. We have to
      expand our field of intervention beyond the consultation room." Moreover, they add, "The failure to
      consider how race and culture intersect class, gender, and socioeconomic issues and how these influences shape diagnostic assessment, treatment, and
      health outcomes is yet another example of how
      structural racism is built into mental health care."
      As seasoned clinicians who have worked extensively
      in public settings with many BIPOC patients, we
      have seen more times than we can count the ways
      in which our patients have suffered from a confluence of factors extending far beyond our clinics.
      As such we couldn't agree more with Shim and
      Vincent on this observation.
      But it is not only social forces at large that can
      oppress our patients and cause or contribute to illness. The system of mental health care itself can be
      and often is oppressive and part of the problem. As
      Shim and Vinson assert, our profession is "shaped
      and practiced in the context of oppression, (and) also
      plays a major role in perpetuating and sustaining
      inequity."
      How does our field do this? To start, racial concerns, including overt racism at times, were written into the mental health system in various ways
      —including diagnoses replete with biases and
      assumptions regarding race—that are largely
      invisible to us now. Social (In)Justice and Mental
      Health makes clear that considering a diagnosis
      apart from the historical, social, and political
      considerations that all factor in to how an individual presents to us in any given moment is
      dangerous (because it can support and lend credence to what might be racist), naive, and ultimately racist if it ends up bolstering racist attitudes and institutions.
      Understanding the racist forces at work within
      mental health care in the past enables new
      ways of addressing current implications and
      identified barriers, including how schizophrenia is
      more frequently diagnosed among BIPOC, racial
      bias and stereotyping of BIPOC when diagnosing
      substance use and personality disorders, and
      why BIPOC are disproportionately jailed and
      imprisoned in the United States, just to name a
      few. We need to hold society and the mental
      health system accountable for health disparities
      and shift toward practices and policies that result
      in fair and equitable mental health care for
      everyone.
      The book is divided into 4 parts. The first part
      addresses some theoretical concerns about social
      injustice. The second section addresses systems
      and structures that affect mental health. The third
      section addresses the ways in which social injustices factor into a number of specific psychiatric
      diagnoses, and the final section focuses on how to
      move forward to try to effect real change. With
      chapters dedicated to federal policies, mental
      health, the carceral system (the authors are correct
      to refuse to use the term "criminal justice system"
      since so much of that system is unjust toward
      BIPOC), and public health, this multidisciplinary
      work marks a seminal contribution that will pave
      the way for further advances in research, theory,
      and practice. The book is also meant to cause
      readers to introspect and consider their own
      thoughts and actions in their daily lives. Along
      these lines, at the end of each chapter the authors
      include "Questions for Self-Reflection" to help
      probe and prod readers to look within and to take
      action.
      This volume has a number of significant
      strengths: It is very well written, comprehensive in
      scope, loaded with compelling data, and, as noted
      above, it is beyond timely. Readers will learn the
      realities of the mental health system and delve into
      thoughtful and expansive chapters that promote
      both awareness and equity. The data cited in this
      volume and the argument that it makes are so
      compelling that, once you finish the book, you will
      be hard pressed to look at mental health care in the
      same way. And not just mental health care—Social
      (In)Justice and Mental Health makes it difficult to
      look at everyday life in the United States in the
      same way as before.
      Social (In)Justice and Mental Health is an overt
      call to action, including looking beyond the walls of
      our clinics and hospitals. As the authors write, "Our
      level of engagement in advocacy as mental health
      professionals often falls short. As clinicians, we are
      charged with supporting patients' progress toward
      recovery even when much of what makes them sick
      or well cannot be addressed by our staying in our
      proverbial lane." We couldn't agree more. In the end, you can't read
      Social (In)Justice and Mental Health and not feel
      moved to act. And by the way, you need to read
      this book.

      -- Candy Smith, PhD, and J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD * Journal of Psychiatric Practice *

      Table of Contents

      Contributors
      Foreword
      Preface
      Part I. Foundations of Social Injustice
      Chapter 1. Social (In)Justice and Mental Health
      Chapter 2. Social Injustice and the Social Determinants of Mental Health
      Chapter 3. Social Injustice and Mental Health Inequities
      Chapter 4. Social Injustice and Structural Racism
      Part II. Systems and Structures
      Chapter 5. Social Injustice and the Schooling System
      Chapter 6. Social Injustice and the Child Welfare System
      Chapter 7. Social Injustice and Urban Development
      Chapter 8. Social Injustice and the Carceral System
      Chapter 9. Social Injustice and the Health Care System
      Part III. Diagnoses and Conditions
      Chapter 10. Social Injustice and Substance Use Disorders
      Chapter 11. Social Injustice and Schizophrenia
      Chapter 12. Social Injustice and Personality Disorders
      Chapter 13. Social Injustice and Child Trauma
      Part IV. Achieving Mental Health Equity
      Chapter 14. Social Justice and Mental Health System Reform
      Chapter 15. Social Justice and Advocacy
      Chapter 16. Social Justice and Mental Health: A Call to Action
      Index

      Recently viewed products

      © 2026 Book Curl

        • American Express
        • Apple Pay
        • Diners Club
        • Discover
        • Google Pay
        • Maestro
        • Mastercard
        • PayPal
        • Shop Pay
        • Union Pay
        • Visa

        Login

        Forgot your password?

        Don't have an account yet?
        Create account