Understanding the relationship between gender and mental health in adolescence: the Gender Adherence Index (GAI).

Half of all mental health disorders appear during adolescence, although it is still far from clear how they relate to gender (not sex) criteria. This study aims both to analyse the relationship between gender and adolescent mental health and to propose an index: the Gender Adherence Index (GAI). We used cross-sectional, secondary data from 3888 adolescents (aged 13-19) from the FRESC Health Survey on Adolescence in Barcelona. We analysed the interaction among sex, age and socio-economic status with several mental health indices. Additionally, we computed a Gender Adherence Index (GAI) to transcend the information-poor binary sex label, and thus assess to what extent mental health can be predicted by the gender expression of adolescents irrespective of their biological sex. We found that older age and lower economic status have a greater impact on the emotional distress of girls, who reported lower self-perceived mental health than boys. Nevertheless, girls obtained higher scores regarding their prosocial behaviour, which is protective against mental health problems. The GAI was retained in all statistical models stressing it as a relevant metric to explain the variability of adolescent emotional distress. Young people who showed adherence to normative femininity in their lifestyles showed higher prosocial behaviour but did not tend to present more emotional distress. Despite its limitations, this is a novel attempt to explore the relationship between gender expression and mental health. Better defined indices of gender adherence could help us to improve our predictive capacity of mental health disorders during adolescence.

Unraveling Reactionary Care: The Experience of Mother-Caregivers of Adults with Severe Mental Disorders in Catalonia.

In most Mediterranean countries, people diagnosed with severe mental disorders (SMDs) are typically cared for by the mother, causing a significant burden on people in this family role. Based on a broader mental health participatory action and qualitative research carried out in Catalonia (Spain) of 12 in-depth interviews and 3 focus groups, this article analyses the mother-caregivers' experience in the domestic space. The results show that patients and caregivers are engaged in a relationship of "nested dependencies", which create social isolation. This produces the conditions of "reactionary care", practices that limit the autonomy of those affected and that reproduce forms of disciplinary psychiatric institutions. We conclude that both institutional violence derived from economic rationality and that which stems from the gender mandate feed off each other into the domestic sphere. This research argues for placing care at the center of clinical practice and shows the need to consider the structural forces shaping it.

Being just their hands? Personal assistance for disabled people as bodywork.

Drawing on the notion of bodywork, we analyse the bodily aspects of personal assistance to expand the dialogue between medical sociology and disability studies. We aim to, firstly, overcome the lack of attention to the bodywork of personal assistant (PAs) in disability studies; secondly, explore the micropolitics of personal assistance and the role of independent living mandates in configuring this bodywork of PAs; and, thirdly, propose a more relational and material approach to the impairment/disability debate. This exploration is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 23 PAs conducted in Spain between 2018 and 2020. Our research reveals that PAs' bodywork implies performing their body as body-absence, such as when they enact body-tool and body-prosthesis figurations, but also as body-presence, for instance, as acting bodies and affected/affecting bodies in specific situations. Through their analysis, we foreground how PAs' bodywork conveys normative ways of enacting the body and how these body figurations are not only challenged and negotiated but define the actual practice of personal assistance. To conclude, we stress on the theoretical contributions of our study towards both disability studies and medical sociology.

[Mad pride and metaphors for dissidence: a linguistic and symbolic analysis]. / Orgullo loco y metáforas para una disidencia: un análisis lingüístico y simbólico.

This paper presents a linguistic and interpretative analysis of the use of conceptual metaphors in the field of mental health, taking as a field of observation the use of Twitter in the first edition of Mad Pride Day in Spain, held on May 20, 2018. The objective is to give a first-person account of the attitudes expressed by activists. The results show a questioning of the coercive logics produced by psychiatric care, a problematization of the hegemonic model as a whole, a criticism of the oppression implied by stigma, communication problems with professionals in the field of mental health, as well as demands for greater dialogue with them. This analysis has allowed us to understand linguistic modes of resignifying the field of mental health, and also to account for the tensions between subjective perceptions of the people diagnosed and the productions of the hegemonic medical model.

El presente artículo expone un análisis lingüístico e interpretativo sobre el uso de la metáfora conceptual en el campo de la salud mental, tomando como campo de observación el uso de Twitter en la primera edición del Día del Orgullo Loco en España, celebrada el 20 de mayo de 2018. El objetivo es dar cuenta de los posicionamientos expresados por los activistas en primera persona. Los resultados muestran un cuestionamiento a las lógicas coercitivas producidas por la atención psiquiátrica, una problematización del modelo hegemónico en su conjunto, una denuncia a la opresión que implica el estigma, problemas de comunicación y demandas de mayor diálogo con los profesionales del campo de la salud mental. Este análisis nos ha permitido comprender el modo lingüístico de re-semantizar el campo de la salud mental, así como dar cuenta de las tensiones existentes entre las percepciones subjetivas de las personas diagnosticadas y las producciones del modelo médico hegemónico.

The collaborative management of antipsychotic medication and its obstacles: A qualitative study.

Antipsychotic medication is the primary treatment for psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders; nevertheless, its administration is not free from conflicts. Despite taking their medication regularly, 25-50% of patients report no benefits or perceive this type of treatment as an imposition. Following in the footsteps of a previous initiative in Quebec (Canada), the Gestion Autonome de la Médication en Santé Mentale (GAM), this article ethnographically analyses the main obstacles to the collaborative management of antipsychotics in Catalonia (Spain) as a previous step for the implementation of this initiative in the Catalan mental healthcare network. We conducted in-depth interviews with patients (38), family caregivers (18) and mental health professionals (19), as well as ten focus groups, in two public mental health services, and patients' and caregivers' associations. Data were collected between February and December 2018. We detected three main obstacles to collaboration among participants. First, different understanding of the patient's distress, either as deriving from the symptoms of the disorder (professionals) or the adverse effects of the medication (patients). Second, differences in the definition of (un)awareness of the disorder. Whereas professionals associated disorder awareness with treatment compliance, caregivers understood it as synonymous with self-care, and among patients "awareness of suffering" emerged as a comprehensive category of a set of discomforts (i.e., symptoms, adverse effects of medication, previous admissions, stigma). Third, discordant expectations regarding clinical communication that can be condensed in the differences in meaning between the Spanish words "trato" and "tratamiento", where the first denotes having a pleasant manner and agreement, and the second handling and management. We conclude that these three obstacles pave the way for coercive practices and promote patients' de-subjectivation, named here as the "total patient" effect. This study is the first GAM initiative in Europe.

Marcas biográficas de la narrativa biomédica. Autopercepción y resistencias encarnadas / Tracing biomedical narratives in biography. Self-perception and embodied resistances

A partir de una etnografía realizada en Galicia entre 2013 y 2014, el presente texto aborda el impacto que tiene la praxis biomédica en entornos terapéuticos, particularmente en la elaboración de significados personales sobre el sufrimiento psíquico. A partir de diferentes relatos biográficos de personas diagnosticadas de esquizofrenia, se destacan algunos elementos discursivos y prácticas atencionales que interfieren en los marcos de referencia desde los que las personas afectadas identifican posibles causas de su malestar. Desde una perspectiva socioeducativa, dialógica y crítica, se señala cómo, más allá de la existencia de determinadas estructuras de poder, por medio de la puesta en valor de los saberes en primera persona, resulta posible situar alternativas, tácticas y objetivos a desarrollar en la gestión social del malestar

Based on an ethnographic study conducted in Galicia (Spain) during 2013-2014, this paper analyses the impact of biomedical praxis in therapeutic environments, particularly on how people diagnosed with mental disorders attribute personal meanings to their own psychic suffering. Drawing from different personal biographical accounts of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, we highlight certain biomedical discourses and practices actually interfering the way in which they identify the causes of their own suffering. As an attempt to step beyond the hegemonic frameworks and practices in dealing with mental suffering, we propose some other theoretical approaches (e.g. socio-educational, dialogical, and critical ones), emphasizing personal grounded knowledge among other alternative options