Background: There is a growing understanding that mental health problems and prolonged contact with mental healthcare systems can affect people’s identities. Working with identity is an important element in mental health recovery. Purpose: In this article, we explore the significance of participation in a music and theatre workshop in terms of people`s experiences of identity. Design and methods: This is a qualitative study based on a hermeneutical phenomenological epistemology. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 11 participants at a music and theater workshop, analysed through a narrative analysis and presented in an ideographical “long” narrative form. The music and theater workshop is not overtly therapeutic although the activity takes place in a Norwegian mental health hospital for adults living with long-term mental health problems. Results: We identified three crosscutting themes: (1) becoming a whole person, (2) being allowed to hold multiple identities and (3) exploring diverse perspectives. Conclusion: Findings show that participation in the music and theatre workshop transformed the participants’ experiences of identity on two levels: individually and collectively. The participants developed a broader picture of themselves through their creative work with others. When they developed new identities, the narratives of themselves expanded.

Participation in activities perceived to be meaningful is of importance in recovery processes among people with mental illness. This qualitative study explored experiences of participation in music and theater among people with long-term mental illness. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 11 participants in a music and theater workshop carried out in a Norwegian mental health hospital context. Through a hermeneutical-phenomenological analysis, three central themes emerged: (a) engaging in the moment, (b) reclaiming everyday life, and (c) dreaming of a future. The findings indicate that participation in music and theater provided an opportunity to focus on enjoyable mundane activities and demonstrate how arts have the potential to bring meaning and more specifically small positive moments into participants’ lives. Despite seeming to be small in nature, these moments appeared to be able to add pleasure and meaning to the lives of those experiencing them. Consequently, there is a need to raise professionals’ awareness of these small positive moments of meaning, the power these experiences carry, and how to facilitate arenas which can provide such moments for people with long-term mental illness.

In this article, we explore what enables meaningful participation in a Music and theater workshop from a first-person's perspective of people with mental health problems. The study uses a hermeneutical phenomenological approach. Data were collected from qualitative indepth interviews with 12 participants in a music and theater workshop located in a Norwegian mental health hospital. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Two overarching themes were identified: (a) room for dignity and (b) a creative arena. This study indicates that in order to enable participation for people with long-term mental health problems, it is important to facilitate activities that are flexible, person centered, and resource oriented, in which participants have the possibility to participate regardless of symptoms, functional ability, or whether they are hospitalized. In addition, having professionals who believe in creative growth and offer an illness-free zone that belongs to the participants in a hospital setting is of great importance.

Mental health services need to transform from a primary focus on symptom reduction to a recovery-oriented delivery. Research on recovery-oriented practices is mainly based in community mental health settings, while research on specialized mental health care remains scarce. In this article, we aim to identify and explore the experiences faced by professionals working in specialized mental health care units that aim to be recovery-oriented. Data were collected during seven focus group interviews with 45 professionals from four psychiatric hospitals and district psychiatric centers in Norway. We used reflexive thematic analysis to interpret the data. Three main themes emerged from the analysis: (a) disease-oriented structures, (b) negotiating roles and (c) risk management. This study identified the many tensions professionals face as they try to shift specialized mental health care toward a recovery-oriented paradigm. Specifically, professionals must balance managing risks and promoting self-determination. To succeed, it is not sufficient to implement practices that are characterized as recovery-oriented without also changing existing systems, structures, and frameworks. We suggest approaching recovery orientation through shared decision-making. This could contribute to the promotion of self-determination and increased inpatient safety in specialized mental health care.