The Power Threat and Meaning Framework (PTMF)

Project description

RMHM is relevant and important to introduce in Sweden given the spread of mental health problems. The queues to the country’s psychiatric and child and adolescent psychiatric clinics are getting longer, and the proportion of Sweden’s population on psychotropic drugs is increasing, even among young people.

Many argue that the prevailing psychiatric diagnostic systems contribute to this situation because they reinterpret psychological suffering as illness. The idea of being able to link clear psychiatric diagnoses to evidence-based treatment that should quickly lead to effect has not proven to work. In fact, the diagnoses often do not correspond to diseases but are merely descriptions of behaviors and emotional suffering (symptoms), and the treatments offered, often medications, can only alleviate the symptoms but not cure them. Treatment times with medications tend to be long, and often cause serious side effects that in turn lead to disabilities and create stigma and doubt about one’s own abilities. The individual’s experiences and perceptions do not fit when psychological suffering is defined as a disease to be treated medically.

Critical voices have been raised internationally, for example within the WHO, and even in Sweden, many are questioning the development. RMHM is interesting and relevant as a complement or, as the documents suggest, an alternative to the psychiatric diagnostic systems. It includes multiple perspectives and many aspects of current research, theory, and practice. RMHM is a project under development that will need to be adapted to different contexts and applications in the future. What is understood in the psychiatric diagnostic systems as symptoms of illness is instead seen in RMHM as human reactions and expressions to be explored and understood based on the individual’s own experiences. Emotional pain, despair, unusual experiences, and behaviors that become problematic for the individual or others are seen as defense reactions and survival strategies that are meaningful and must be understood within the relational and social context.

RMHM has been designed by psychologists and former psychiatric patients and includes knowledge and experiences compiled from people who have themselves experienced psychological suffering and psychiatric treatment and care.

Editor group

Eva Henje, Professor at Umeå Universitet and senior consultant physician in child and adolescent psychiatry

Fanny Marell, MSc, social worker, psychotherapist, supervisor and teacher in psychotherapy

Kerstin Hopstadius, psychologist, psychotherapist, editor and translator

Lasse Mattila, social worker, chair of Riksföreningen Kontext, editor in chief of the web magazine Mad in Sweden

Contributors at the Unit of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Umeå

Inga Dennhag, docent, psychologist

Ida Blomqvist, MD, PhD, resident physician in child and adolescent psychiatry

Lina Rådmark, MSc Pharmacy, PhD, Post-doc

Erik Ekbäck, MD, doctoral student, resident physician in general practise/family medicine

Frida Carlberg Rindestig, psychologist, doctoral student

Mio Negga, psychologist

Jenny Molin, docent, nurse

Other contributors

Alain Topor, psychologist, professor at Agder University

Ebba Karlsson, psychologist and survivor

Elisabeth Punzi, psychologist, specialist in neuro psychology, specialist in clinical psychology, PhD, docent in psychology, associate professor in social work at Gothenburg University

Frida Öhrberg, upper secondary school teacher in Swedish and history and survivor

Carl Göran Svedin, MD, child and adolescent psychiatry, psychotherapist and affiliated professor at the Department of Social Work at Marie Cederschiöld högskola

Peter Engelsöy, senior consultant physician, psychotherapist