© Critical Social Policy Ltd 2008 0261– 0183 97 Vol. 28(4): 411 – 414; 095277 SAGE PUBLICATIONS, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC 10.1177/0261018308095277 411  PAUL STENNER, MARIAN BARNES & DAVID TAYLOR University of Brighton Editorial introduction – Psychosocial welfare: Contributions to an emerging field There has been a steadily growing interest in the ‘psychosocial’ aspects of welfare and well-being in the last few years and, arguably, there is now a critical mass of academics, policy makers and practitioners adopting a broadly psychosocial approach to these issues. On the one hand, this interest reflects a growing awareness of the psychological dimension to welfare issues and of the deep implication of the social and psychological sciences in the regulation and governance of welfare and well-being. On the other, there has been an increasing attempt to understand the expressive component of the social relations of welfare and their moral and ethical dimensions. The attempt to move beyond existing disciplinary configurations of the psychological and social sciences demands the development of modes of thinking and acting capable of recognizing both that social issues and problems have psychological dimensions and that, symmetrically, psychological questions need always to be addressed in relation to a social and material milieu. Our existing forms of disciplinary knowledge have, more often than not, obscured rather than clarified the relations that obtain between forms of social regula- tion and governance on the one hand, and forms of subjectivity, self- hood, identity and experience on the other. This special issue brings together contributions from some of those working in this emergent area of psychosocial approaches to social welfare. The broad aim of the special issue is to take stock of the current state of psychosocial approaches to welfare such that possible future direc- tions can be thoughtfully entertained. Papers have come from a variety of sources, but several were presented in draft form at a seminar entitled ‘Psychosocial Welfare: Interdisciplinary Contributions to an Emerging Field’ held at the University of Brighton in June 2007. This event gave several of the contributors the opportunity to discuss important dif- ferences of opinion and perspective, and we have tried to express such by guest on November 2, 2016 csp.sagepub.com Downloaded from