Niedderer, K., Ludden, G., Dening, T., Holthoff-Detto, V., 2024.

Introduction

The Introduction to the book sets out the aim of the book to demonstrate how design can help support people, their care partners and care professionals in promoting mental health and wellbeing. It explores the book's main themes relating to design, mental health and wellbeing to provide the wider context and rationale for this book as well as to set out its scope, structure and an overview of the book's contributions. The introduction considers the importance of furthering mental health and wellbeing, especially following the rise of mental ill-health during the Covid pandemic and subsequently. It discusses the key terminology and its use for the purposes of the book, including wellbeing, compassion and empathy, mental health, mental illness, dementia, neurodiversity, design, co-design and design policy. It traces the urgency for support in the areas of mental health and wellbeing for people affected by mental illness, dementia or neurodiversity as well as the increasing role and opportunities of design in promoting person-centred care. The introduction also explains how the chapters were selected and provides a brief overview over each of the three parts of the book: Co-designing with people with lived experience; Design interventions for mental health and wellbeing; and Policy and Regulations. It finally reflects on the role and contribution of the book in providing the first collective overview and reflective discussion of how design - as a collaborative creative process as well as an outcome of this process - can contribute to people's wellbeing and mental health in the context of dementia, mental illness and neurodiversity, and how this is guided by mental health and design policy.