Explaining mental illness: Sociological perspectives. By B.Brossard, A.Chandler, Bristol: Bristol University Press. 2022. pp. 198. $139.95 (cloth); $42.95 (pbk); $42.95 (ebk). ISBN: 978‐1529215069

In Explaining Mental Illness, Brossard and Chandler offer an authoritative account of the pasts, present(s) and futures of the sociology of mental health. Concerned that the field itself has stagnated, as well as that the work of explaining mental illness has been left largely to the psy-disciplines, Brossard and Chandler argue that sociologists can—and should—offer explanations for why and how ‘mental illness’ is produced and distributed and that these sociological explanations have urgent implications for how ‘mental illness’ is understood in critical scholarship. The book is organised around a central argument that the siloing of the ‘sociology of mental health’ as a subfield of sociological inquiry ‘runs the risk of losing sight of the bigger picture’ (Brossard & Chandler, 2022, p. 8): That is, ‘mental health’ cannot be parsed out from social life but is embedded within, and produced, experienced and understood through networks of institutions, social relations and power structures, which must be explained and accounted for. Therefore, the sociology of mental health potentially constitutes a generalised mode of sociological inquiry. The authors’ arguments for a deep and sociological contextualisation of mental health within social worlds is a timely addition to burgeoning fields of critical mental health scholarship. The book has both a review function and a catalysing function: that is, the authors map out extant scholarship in the sociology of mental health and, importantly, work to move the field forward by identifying and exploring opportunities for sociologists to contribute more fulsomely to explanations for mental health and illness. Rather than organising chapters according to traditional theoretical divisions (i.e., a chapter on functionalist perspectives, conflict theory perspectives), the authors organise chapters according to ‘reasonings’ and assumptions undergirding relevant scholarship—namely, social positioning and inequality, the stress paradigm, labelling theory and culture. Each chapter provides a critical overview of scholarly trends and debates in each area, engages with the contributions, strengths, and limitations of this scholarship and concludes with future-oriented suggestions geared towards renewing and critically strengthening sociological engagements with mental health and illness. The conclusion of the book applies concepts teased out throughout the four themes of the book to the global and imminent ‘mental health crisis’, generating a ‘sociologically informed understanding of the “crisis”’ (p. 120). The conclusion is particularly valuable in its concretisation and application of concepts and threads of ‘reasoning’ which the authors explore in previous chapters. By bringing threads of critique together, the authors clarify and substantiate the wide-reaching implications sociology of mental health research. I appreciate the authors’ forward-looking engagements with ‘new directions’ in the sociology of mental health. As a gender studies scholar, I was particularly interested and excited by the inclusion of intersectionality paradigms in Chandler and Brossard’s text, which is taken up with respect to mental health and social position (Chapter One), the relationship between stress and ‘intersecting social identities and positions’ (Chapter Two, p. 49) and revisited again in the Conclusion when addressing the ways in which ‘the mental health crisis as a social phenomenon partly reflects the landscape of identities in which individuals are (problematically) positioned’ (p. 121). While intersectionality is, as the authors note, a powerful concept for engaging with the complexities of social positionality, identity and mental health, at times the text tends to reduce intersectionality to questions of representation, social position and identity. This focus potentially obscures and depoliticises the structural roots of intersectionality in Black feminisms, global south feminisms and women of colour critique. Questions about levels of analysis in intersectionality paradigms—and the implications of these—have been substantively explored by feminist and critical health scholars (see, e.g., Bilge, 2010; Hankivsky, 2011). Ultimately, this book will make a welcome and frequently-visited addition to the bookshelves of graduate students and established researchers working in and around critical mental health scholarship, sociology of mental health, and sociology more broadly. The impressive scope of literature the authors engage, coupled with Brossard and Chandler’s authoritative re-organisation and appraisal, positions this book as a thorough introductory and intermediate resource. Readers familiar with the field will find Brossard and Chandler’s critiques insightful and generative. Readers not familiar with the field will find the text densely packed with ideas, yet thoroughly researched and referenced. Ultimately, Brossard and Chandler make a compelling, timely and well-substantiated case for the crucial role of the social sciences in conversations about mental health, illness and madness.

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