With up to a quarter of us at risk of mental illness at some time in our lives, mental health is everybody’s business – and it’s a fascinating and challenging subject to study, whether your interest is personal or professional.
How do we define mental health or illness? What’s the best way to help? How have treatments and attitudes changed over the years, and what are the current concerns and debates? What about the people who use services – how are their voices heard, to bring about positive change in their care and the way that others see them?
Attitudes to mental illness
On the whole there is understanding and tolerance for people with mental illness, but where should mental health care take place?
Read about changing attitudes to mental illness.
Evolving mental health care
Listen to how mental health care has evolved over the last century
The Open University offers a range of courses and qualifications designed to lift the lid on this complex, fast moving and controversial area of health and social care: characterised by diverse views, intense emotion and experience, power and powerlessness, and inclusion and exclusion.
You can study a single course, or work towards an award such as the Certificate in Mental Health Studies or a diploma or degree tailored to your personal or professional needs. You’ll find yourself studying alongside all sorts of health and social care professionals from general and specialist areas – including nursing, social work and education – and you’ll hear from many more as you work through the multi-media study materials.
But at the heart of everything you learn will be the people who matter most in all of this – the service users and their carers, who take an active role in producing our course materials, helping to drive positive change in practice and service provision.