The aim of this study is to shed light on what makes women decide whether or not to continue with legal proceedings for intimate partner violence once they have commenced. Legal professionals, members of the police force, and women in Spain were interviewed to help draft a questionnaire that was applied to a sample of 345 women who had undertaken legal proceedings against their (ex)partners. Socio-demographic, emotional, and psychological variables were considered as possible predictor variables and included in a logistic regression analysis. Results show that the best equation for predicting disengagement from legal procedures includes the level of support received by the victim, contact with the aggressor, thoughts about going back with the aggressor, and a feeling of guilt. The essential role of the psychological support during the legal process is emphasized in conclusions

Employment has been highlighted as a determinant of health and as an essential milestone in the recovery process of people with serious mental illness. Different types of programs and public services have been designed to improve the employability of this population. However, there has not been much interest in the meanings attributed to these experiences and the negative aspects of work experience. In this research, we explored the meanings that participants attributed to their work experience and the impact of work on their recovery process. Research participants lived in Andalusia (Spain), a region in southern Europe with a high unemployment rate. Two versions of a semi-structured interview were designed: one for people who were working, and one for unemployed people. Participants' narratives were categorized according to grounded theory and the analyses were validated in group sessions. Apart from several positive effects for recovery, the analysis of the narratives about work experience outlined certain obstacles to recovery. For example, participants mentioned personal conflicts and stress, job insecurity and meaningless jobs. While valid, the idea that employment is beneficial for recovery must be qualified by the personal meanings attributed to these experiences, and the specific cultural and economic factors of each context.

A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. Purpose: This mixed (quantitative-qualitative) study evaluates the impact of an artistic workshop on a group of people with severe mental illness. This study focuses on the impact of creative practices on well-being and social inclusion outcomes. Method: After participating in a creative workshop, 31 people diagnosed with a severe mental illness completed pre/post-intervention measures, namely, the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale and the Social Inclusion questionnaire. It was applied in two-way repeated measures analysis of variance. The statistic Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallies were applied for non-parametric data to measure pre/post-test effects and workshop experience effects respectively. In addition to quantitative measures, one observer participated in each workshop that ran in parallel in order to deepen and triangulate quantitative outcomes. Results:The qualitative and quantitative results show that social inclusion improved in a significant way with an important size effect. Psychological wellbeing increased significantly with a low size effect. Conclusions:In accordance with these results, creative practices with people diagnosed with severe mental illness are recommended. In order to increase the impact of these interventions, it is recommended to utilize public space away from clinical environments and to include people without severe mental illness in creative activities together with severe mental illness patients.

The fact that individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia have difficulties in terms of ordering and communicating their life stories is well known, and undoubtedly these dysfunctions are linked to the experience of alienation and isolation. In this article we contribute to the debate by studying life narratives of ten patients with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia living in care homes in Andalusia, Spain. Patients were selected through meetings held with the directors of the care homes and data obtained from narrative, semistructured interviews. Thematic self-positioning and structure analysis identified four types of clearly distinctive narratives: delusive episodes with invasive voices, delusive episodes with no invasive voices, absence of delusive episodes or invasive voices and domination of self-position as patient, and complexity and articulation of self-positions.

This study explores qualitative changes in the life narratives of persons diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who were receiving recovery treatment in special care homes in Andalusia, Spain. These narratives are related to patients' construction of social identity and the recovery process. Initially, 10 narrative interviews were performed. The first five patients (Group 1) had lived at the homes for only 3 months, while the other five (Group 2) had been there for 61.4 months. Two years after the initial interviews, three patients from Group 1 were interviewed once more. The qualitative analysis focuses on two topics: experience of illness and personal relationships. Long-stay patients create their identities by using more categories related to relationships and make fewer references to illness than Group 1 subjects. They also make fewer delusive or hallucinatory utterances, and their narratives have more elements that can be shared in the community than Group 1 narratives. Moreover, long-stay patients show significant language resources and greater capacity for agency. Results suggest that special care homes provide important emotional support and a rich, new network. These results are related to the sociocultural characteristics of special care homes and suggest that the analysis of life narratives could be a very useful instrument for assessing the recovery process.