ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on research in geography and related disciplines concerning ‘geographies of care’ to treat mental illness and promote mental health and wellbeing. A significant body of geographical work has focused on the social geographies of historical settings for mental health care, and particularly on the development of the asylum as the main setting for care of serious mental illness during the 18th and 19th Centuries. More recent deinstitutionalisation of psychiatric care has given rise to a new wave of geographical research on post-asylum care settings. This chapter considers geographical understandings and interpretations of various places where psychiatric medicine and other therapies are provided to people suffering from mental illness or psychological distress. Selected examples are used to illustrate how geographical perspectives have been used to interpret the blurred and complex interrelationships between these different types of care setting, as well as the material, social and symbolic attributes of specific ‘care spaces’ which contribute to their therapeutic properties. This chapter concludes with a discussion of how variations in patterns of provision and use of psychiatric services may be interpreted in terms of arguments about territorial justice in the distribution of services relative to population needs.
