Creativity in Times of Constraint: A Practitioner's Companion in Mental Health and Social Care

Contemporary practices in mental health (and social care) are increasingly characterized by approaches that overly simplify social, political, and psychological concerns. The persistence and ubiquity of models designated to tackle diagnoses through focused technologies serve to minimize the human encounter in all its relational and systemic complexity. Practice becomes a technological activity instead of one concerned with the unique creative potential in meeting with others in therapy.

With the growth of privatized mental health services, many practitioners are facing a plethora of “Must Do’s” that focus on measurable outcomes, with clear goals and cost effective treatments. Yet, in practice, such apparent clarity of purpose often leads to bureaucratic clutter and risk aversion instead of clearing the decks for creativity.

The focus of this book is how the practitioner or therapist can navigate around current practices in order to avoid falling into the rapids of quick fix solutions, whilst staying afloat to find realistic outcomes to human dilemmas that are brought to us. Therapy is only worthwhile if the practice is not dictated by a “manual” and instead guided by a “humanual” that does not eschew theories or protocols but places the human encounter first and foremost as the locus of attention.