Trusting on the edge: implications for policy Chapter Six draws together a number of the key themes emerging within the book and considers these, and the value of trust, as a principle for policymaking – at local and macro-policy levels. Mental health policy has oscillated over many years between facilitating the meeting of need through a more medicalised focus and recurring preoccupations with proceduralism – not least those around risk. It is argued that mental health services organised around a concept of trust may be more effective in satisfying both these concerns. The potential for...

Trusting on the edge: implications for policy Chapter Six draws together a number of the key themes emerging within the book and considers these, and the value of trust, as a principle for policymaking – at local and macro-policy levels. Mental health policy has oscillated over many years between facilitating the meeting of need through a more medicalised focus and recurring preoccupations with proceduralism – not least those around risk. It is argued that mental health services organised around a concept of trust may be more effective in satisfying both these concerns. The potential for trust to replace risk as a dominant organising concept for mental health policy is thus explored alongside factors that would seem to limit such a possibility. A number of broader reflections across the themes of the book are also raised.