From Person to Policy: The influence of the early work of Peter Huxley

This paper reflects on two major early works of Peter Huxley; Mental Illness in the Community (Goldberg and Huxley, 1983) and Common Mental Disorders: A Bio-Social Model (Goldberg and Huxley, 1992). These works provided a conceptual and empirical basis for new concepts such as the ‘mental health system’ and a ‘whole population’ framework. These models, along with their evidence-based description of psychosocial factors associated with mental health difficulties, contributed to the developing field of mental health promotion and subsequently, public mental health. Goldberg and Huxley used their deep understanding of these two elements to integrate the growing evidence in social psychiatry, and to provide the conceptual framework and evidence for a new language for psychiatric disorder; one which began to balance the influence of the social with the biological in the biopsychosocial model of mental health