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The familiar stranger of mental health

The familiar stranger of mental health PurposeThis paper aims to contribute to the debate about the closure of institutional mental health-care facilities, from an experiential perspective of a former mental health inpatient, ongoing service user and campaigner for retention of such facilities. It argues that auto-ethnographic accounts of mental illness by those with multiple social identities can have a greater role in terms of future training of mental health-care professionals.Design/methodology/approachThe paper offers an experiential account of the impact of mental health facility bed closures as a patient admitted to institutional mental health facilities; as a mental health campaigner, fighting for the provision of both places of safety and “safe space” within his own local community; and as an ongoing service user. The research is in the interpretivist tradition of social science in taking an auto-ethnographical methodological stance.FindingsThis paper is underpinned by two key theoretical notions. Firstly, Stuart Hall’s concept of the Familiar Stranger (2017) is used to explore the tensions of self-identity as the author SHIFTS uncomfortably between his three-fold statuses. Secondly, the notion of “ontological insecurity” offered by Giddens (1991) is used with the paper exploring the paradox that admission to a mental health facility so-called “place of safety” is in fact itself a disorientating experience for both patient and carer(s).Research limitations/implicationsNo positivistic claims to reliability, representativeness or generalisability can be made. It is the authenticity of the account which the reader feels should be afforded primacy in terms of its original contribution to knowledge.Practical implicationsThis paper should have practical use for those tasked with developing educational and training curriculums for professionals across the mental health-care sector.Social implicationsThis paper implicitly assesses the political wisdom of the policy of mental health bed closures within the wider context of the deinstitutionalisation movement.Originality/valueThis paper is underpinned by original experiential accounts from the author as patient, campaigner for places of safety and onging service-user of mental health care provision. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice Emerald Publishing

The familiar stranger of mental health

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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1755-6228
DOI
10.1108/JMHTEP-08-2019-0036
Publisher site
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Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to contribute to the debate about the closure of institutional mental health-care facilities, from an experiential perspective of a former mental health inpatient, ongoing service user and campaigner for retention of such facilities. It argues that auto-ethnographic accounts of mental illness by those with multiple social identities can have a greater role in terms of future training of mental health-care professionals.Design/methodology/approachThe paper offers an experiential account of the impact of mental health facility bed closures as a patient admitted to institutional mental health facilities; as a mental health campaigner, fighting for the provision of both places of safety and “safe space” within his own local community; and as an ongoing service user. The research is in the interpretivist tradition of social science in taking an auto-ethnographical methodological stance.FindingsThis paper is underpinned by two key theoretical notions. Firstly, Stuart Hall’s concept of the Familiar Stranger (2017) is used to explore the tensions of self-identity as the author SHIFTS uncomfortably between his three-fold statuses. Secondly, the notion of “ontological insecurity” offered by Giddens (1991) is used with the paper exploring the paradox that admission to a mental health facility so-called “place of safety” is in fact itself a disorientating experience for both patient and carer(s).Research limitations/implicationsNo positivistic claims to reliability, representativeness or generalisability can be made. It is the authenticity of the account which the reader feels should be afforded primacy in terms of its original contribution to knowledge.Practical implicationsThis paper should have practical use for those tasked with developing educational and training curriculums for professionals across the mental health-care sector.Social implicationsThis paper implicitly assesses the political wisdom of the policy of mental health bed closures within the wider context of the deinstitutionalisation movement.Originality/valueThis paper is underpinned by original experiential accounts from the author as patient, campaigner for places of safety and onging service-user of mental health care provision.

Journal

The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice – Emerald Publishing

Published: Apr 29, 2020

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