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<p>About the Contributors ix</p> <p>Acknowledgements xi</p> <p>Chapter 1 Introduction: Mental Health, Emotional</p> <p>Well-Being and 21st Century Work 1</p> <p>Chapter 2 Getting Britain Back to Work: A Policy Perspective 11</p> <p>Chapter 3 Mental Health and Work-Experiences of Work<br />Ben Fincham, Carl Walker with Holly Easlick 39</p> <p>Chapter 4 Techniques of Identity Governance and Resistance:</p> <p>Formulating the Neoliberal Worker<br />Carl Walker, Ben Fincham with Josh Cameron 67</p> <p>Chapter 5 Managing Mental Health in Organizations 97</p> <p>Chapter 6 Work/Life Balance and the Individualized</p> <p>Responsibility of the Neoliberal Worker 133</p> <p>Chapter 7 Concluding Thoughts: Neoliberalism and the Shrine of Work 147</p> <p>References 163</p> <p>Index 179</p>

"While this book is designed for academics and professionals who work in the mental health sphere, it is so well written and so clearly sincere that it makes it extremely accessible to anyone with a general interest in the subject." (RoSPA Occupational Safety & Health Journal, 10 February 2012)

<b>Carl Walker</b> is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Brighton. His research and teaching interests include social inequality and mental distress, cultural representations of mental health, and critical community approaches to psychology. He is course leader for the MA in Community Psychology and is currently engaged in work around employment, personal debt and mental distress. His previous publications include <i>Depression and Globalisation</i> (2007). <p><b>Ben Fincham</b> is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex. He has been involved with developing projects on 'mobilities' and qualitative approaches to studying work in unstable employment environments, and his current research focuses on the complex relationship between work and mental health. He is co-author of <i>Mobile Methodologies</i> (2010).</p>

There is longstanding interest in the relationship between mental health and work. Based on new data, this book challenges much of the conventional wisdom in this area. It suggests that the impact of neoliberal social and economic activity in the UK over recent years has meant the return of potentially debilitating forms of subjugation and exploitation. More people now struggle for fewer jobs of increasing intensity, reduced legal protection and lower real wages. <p>In addition, recent years have witnessed the implementation of unenforceable health and safety management standards and recommendations to guide workplace organisation. A key consequence of this approach has been the implementation of cultures of mental health replete with practices of discipline, control and identity configuration, with greater emphasis on productivity at the cost of mental wellbeing. This book outlines the way in which the lived experiences of mental health often fail to accord with modern industrial and corporate visions of acceptable personhood. In doing so, it questions the fundamental and largely accepted cultural maxim that work is unquestionably good for people with mental health difficulties.</p>

With the costs of mental ill health and stress in the workplace estimated at nearly £27m per annum in terms of sickness absence and presenteeism, work, health and wellbeing has become a major business issue. The <i>Foresight Report on Mental Capital and Wellbeing</i> (Cooper et al  [2009], Wiley-Blackwell) and Dame Carol Black’s work and health report, have both emphasized what this excellent and timely book is arguing: that working people are suffering and something needs to be done.<br /> <b><i>—Cary L. Cooper</i></b><i>, Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health, Lancaster University Management School, UK</i> <p>Set in the context of a critique of neo liberal political economy, this book should be read by all those who hold up work as a means to improved well-being, without due regard to what kind of work is available to those for whom it is prescribed.<br /> <b><i>—Theo Nichols</i></b><i>, Distinguished Research Professor, Cardiff University, UK</i></p>

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