This article summarises current knowledge about two aspects of family care for people with mental illness: potentially pressurising or coercive aspects of family life; and family carers' experiences of being involved in coercive service interventions. There is a paucity of studies on these topics, especially outside Europe, North America and Australasia, and further research is recommended.

Coercion remains a central aspect of many people's mental healthcare. It can include the use of legislation to restrict freedoms, the use of physical restraint, the restriction of freedom of movement and/or association, and the forced or covert administration of medication. There is good evidence that the use of such measures can traumatise service users. This article reports the findings of a survey of service users regarding their experiences of coercion and restraint and embeds this in the wider international and institutional environment.

Coercion remains a dominant theme in mental healthcare and a source of major concern. While the presence of coercion is ubiquitous internationally, it varies significantly in nature and degree in different countries and is influenced by a variety of factors. Recent reports have raised concerns about physical restraint and the increasing use of legislation in high-income countries. At the same time, a recent Human Rights Watch report on pasung (the practice of tying or restricting movement more generally) in Indonesia has served to highlight the plight of many in middle- and lower-income countries who are subject to degrading and dehumanising ‘treatment’.

This paper is the first in a planned series of papers studying the effectiveness of psychotherapy and counselling in Nairobi. It describes a method for checking the effectiveness of psychotherapy and improving service quality in a Kenyan context. Rather than prematurely imposing psychotherapy protocols developed in Western countries in another cultural context, we believe that first studying psychological interventions as they are practised may generate understanding of which psychological problems are common, what interventions therapists use, and what seems to be effective in reducing psychiatric problems. The initial step is to assess outcome of psychological treatments as they are conducted. This is followed by statistical analyses aimed at identifying patient groups who are not improving at acceptable rates. Therapists will then be trained in a ‘best practice’ approach, and controlled trials are used in a final step, testing new interventions specifically targeted at patient groups with sub-optimal outcomes.

Community-based rehabilitation is the strategy endorsed by the World Health Organization and other international bodies to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. In this article we trace the journey of Edawu, a mental health rehabilitation unit in a rural area of Benue State, Nigeria, from an in-patient rehabilitation unit to a community-focused service. The partnership of organisations from the UK with Edawu along the journey is also described. The authors set out learning points from the project and the principles behind sustainable overseas organisational partnerships.

Mental health law in South Africa has been dominated in recent times by the Mental Health Care Act 2002. This paper provides selective insights into specific aspects of that Act and highlights its impact on clinical practice within a broad clinical setting and in so doing suggests areas for review and revision.

This paper examines the management of offenders with mental disorders in Brunei Darussalam. The existing legislation, resources and service configuration are discussed in the context of recent developments and the challenges that need to be addressed. An innovative multi-agency approach is suggested to improve the management of a group of people with complex needs.

This reflection focuses on research conducted in ‘The Jungle’ in Calais, an informal camp of approximately 6000 refugees (Help Refugees, 2016). My self-designed qualitative study aimed to assess the availability and nature of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) by interviewing service providers about their role in MHPSS. The research questioned whether MHPSS was evidence-based (Tol et al, 2011), what types of MHPSS was available, what service providers envisaged to be the most immediate needs, and barriers and enabling factors in MHPSS.