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Accessible summary: What is known on the subject?: Contemporary mental health policy stipulates consumer participation in all aspects of mental health services including service evaluation and other forms of mental health research.Research is identified as underpinning quality mental health services, and therefore, consumers researchers could enhance the mental health sector by contributing to the quality, credibility and relevance of mental health research. What this paper adds to existing knowledge?: Non‐consumer researchers generally supported the concept of a consumer expert reference group for researchers at the individual and institutional level.A consumer expert reference group should reflect diversity and offer expertise relevant to the topic of research and may represent one way to normalize partnerships with consumer researchers and realize the benefits they can bring to research. What are the implications for practice?: Quality mental health services are underpinned by robust research evidence. It is crucial that consumers are active participants in research activity.The availability of a consumer expert reference group could facilitate collaborations between consumer and non‐consumer researchers and contribute to a stronger consumer focus embedded in mental health research. Introduction: Contemporary mental health policy identifies consumers as active participants in all aspects of mental health services from design to evaluation. Consumer researchers should be actively involved in mental health research and contribute to quality service delivery. Aim: To gain a snapshot of mental health researcher views on strategies for increasing research by or with consumers in mental health through the establishment of an Expert Consumer Researcher Group (ECRG). Methods: Cross‐sectional survey of 41 non‐consumer mental health researchers from Australia or New Zealand. Results: The introduction of an ECRG was considered an effective strategy for linking consumer and non‐consumer researchers and providing specialist advice on research design and methodology. The most suitable location for this group was identified as within consumer advocacy agencies (71%), universities (66%) or research funding bodies (66%). Participants rated their likelihood of seeking advice from the ECRG as high. Discussion: Research participants supported the value of an ECRG. They emphasized the importance of ensuring the group reflected a diversity of views and offered specialized expertise related to the specific topic. The ECRG could benefit both individual researchers and larger research organizations. Implications for practice: An ECRG could facilitate collaborations with consumer researchers and in turn enhance the quality of mental health research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mental health consumer movement initiated the development of the recovery approach, in which self-determination, human rights and the living of a hopeful life superseded merely symptom management for people living with mental illnesses and addictions. To what degree has this reimagined path to recovery shaped social work practice? In this paper we analyse the perspectives of eleven social workers doing child protection work in Aotearoa New Zealand. We examine also the accounts of thirteen parents living with mental illness or addiction who have been involved in child custody investigations in Aotearoa New Zealand. We ask whether the social workers understand recovery as possible for such parents, and if so, how they see it occurring. We found that there is a substantial difference between the way the social workers and the parents conceived of such ‘recovery’. While parents' descriptions of recovery reflected those of the mental health consumer movement, social workers tended to operate with a focus on clinical intervention, symptom and risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper uses Arlie concept of emotion management and “surface” and “deep acting” to explore how sex workers separate and distance themselves from their public role. Experiences of stigmatisation prevail among sex workers and how stigma is resisted or managed has an impact on their health. In-depth interviews were carried out between August 2006 and April 2007 with 58 sex workers in five cities in New Zealand following decriminalisation of the sex industry. Most participants drew on ideas of professionalism in sustaining a psychological distance between their private and public lives. They utilised “deep acting”, transmuting private experiences for use in the work environment, to accredit themselves as professional in their business practices. They also constructed different meanings for sex between public and private relationships with the condom providing an important symbol in separating the two. A few (mostly female street-based) participants were less adept at “deep acting” and relied on drugs to maintain a separation of roles. This paper argues that in an occupation which is highly stigmatised and in which depersonalisation as an aspect of burn-out has been reported as a common occurrence, the ability to draw on strategies which require “deep acting” provides a healthy estrangement between self and role and can be seen as protective. The separation of self from work identity is not damaging as many radical feminists would claim, but an effective strategy to manage emotions. Hochschild, A. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The circulation in 2007 of a Ministry of Health consultation paper focusing on the extension of collaborative prescribing rights to non-medical professionals has again brought the issue of psychologist prescribing into sharp relief. In the context of mental health workforce shortfalls there has been a slow expansion of psychologists prescribing in America. Closer to home, the Australian Psychological Society has recently completed a survey amongst members and developed a proposal for psychologists to prescribe. In light of these developments, and the Ministry of Health initiated discussion of collaborative prescribing, it seemed pertinent that New Zealand psychologists review their position on this issue. A survey of New Zealand psychologists was undertaken to obtain local perspectives of collaborative prescribing. A small majority of the 571 respondents indicated that they supported the idea of collaborative prescribing, and saw a need for it at least in some areas of health care. Psychologists providing clinical services indicated that collaborative prescribing could be potentially useful in their practice. Several arguments for and against prescribing were considered important, but the impact of collaborative prescribing on the nature of psychology as a profession raised the most concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present accepted classificatory systems (ICD-10 and DSM-IV) represent the culmination of 100 years of post-Kraepelinian evolution. The present paper reports on a study to ascertain the views of New Zealand psychiatrists on their requirements of a classificatory system, and their opinions on those currently in use. Method: An anonymous postal survey of 542 psychiatrists and trainees was undertaken in New Zealand. Results: A total of 235 questionnaires were returned, completed. New Zealand psychiatrists primarily use DSM-IV and do so because that is what they were taught on. They make relatively limited use of the multiaxiality. The purposes of classificatory systems that they value most highly are reliable interclinician communication, and to inform patient management planning. The two purposes they valued least were usefulness for a national statistical base, or to indicate prognosis. Conclusions: New Zealand psychiatrists' views are consistent with some of the stated objectives of ICD-10 and DSM-IV, but there is significant diversity in the former and over-ambition in the latter, with much to be resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]