Language Matters: Appropriate Language Guide for Supporting People in Distress - Softcover

Smith, Anthony; Raven, Melissa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1923042696 ISBN 13: 9781923042698

Publisher: Wakefield Press, 2024

Synopsis

Language matters.

The words and phrases we use can shape our experience and the experience of others. The use of appropriate language is crucial to facilitating appropriate support to people in distress.

Language Matters: Appropriate Language Guide for Supporting People in Distress is a valuable real-world resource. It discusses language that is useful and language that is problematic. It provides a practical set of terms and definitions for compassionately dealing with the distress related to a broad spectrum of human difficulties experienced by many people and frequently encountered by anyone involved in the suicide prevention/mental health field.

If you are a health/welfare worker or a human resources professional, or anyone with an interest in mental health and suicide prevention, and you would like to use language that helps rather than harms, Language Matters is an important resource for you.

Language Matters is a companion to the book Default Depression: How we now interpret distress as mental illness, published in Adelaide by Wakefield Press in 2023.

About this title

About the Authors

Anthony Smith, former board member of Suicide Prevention Australia, is at the forefront of a movement that aims to change the way we consider mental health and suicide prevention. He is co-author of papers and reports promoting the Situational Approach, a concept that offers a fresh way of considering mental health by taking situational factors (such as economic and social disadvantage, and workplace stress) into account when diagnosing and treating depression and anxiety disorders.

For more than two decades Anthony has worked across Australia with networks such as primary health, the life insurance industry, men's sheds and human resources, and at the community level in suicide prevention and research, built on collaborative work with a regional coroner's office.

Melissa Raven is a research fellow with the Critical and Ethical Mental Health group at the University of Adelaide (Australia). She originally qualified as a clinical psychologist, and subsequently completed a masters in epidemiology and a PhD critically analysing claims and evidence about depression and antidepressants. Her mental health research and advocacy is informed by a strong social determinants perspective and a strong critical orientation, which she applies to a range of topics, including suicide prevention, workplace mental health, (over)diagnosis, (inappropriate) prescribing, and financial/nonfinancial conflicts of interest in mental health and the broader health/welfare arena.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wakefield Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1923042696
• ISBN 13: 9781923042698
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 60