Introduction

Abstract

The World Health Organization (2005a) estimates that 450 million people worldwide currently experience ‘mental, neurological or behavioural problems’. In the United States alone, almost 44 million people — approximately one in six of the population — are affected by a mental illness in any given year (United States Department of Health and Human Services 2002). Likewise, the Office for National Statistics (2001: 1) calculates that, at any one time, one in six of the UK population experiences a ‘significant’ mental health problem. The European Union, meanwhile, suggests that mental ill health affects one in four of their citizens (European Commission Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General 2005: 3). On the basis of such figures it is accurate to comment that, sooner or later, most of us will experience some form of mental illness: it is an illness of the majority not the minority. Despite mental illness being responsible for approximately 13 per cent of all disease burden in the world and ranking ‘first among illnesses that cause disability in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe’ (President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health 2003: 3), most countries continue to give a low priority to mental health care (World Health Organization 2005b).