Homeward bound

Abstract

With a focus on enacted narratives, this ethnographic study addresses how people with mental illness communicate returning home after a treatment stay at a psychiatric centre. Data were analysed based on Ricoeur’s theory of narrative and action. Our analysis consisted of three analytic layers: the significant issue of discharge, identifying three stories of how being on the way home is enacted, and a further interpretation and discussion. The narrative analysis shows how significant issues of returning home are enacted among persons in everyday activities at one centre, and how an inherent ambiguity raised some challenges within the field of mental health. This study shows how conducting everyday activities enable people use the available narrative resources to negotiate the self; hence they reflect and create thoughts about the return home that are shared among persons at the centre.

A narrative study of mental health recovery: exploring unique, open-ended and collective processes

“…Our findings show how both Brad, Carl, Mary and Sandra use their past and present experiences from everyday activities as resources to imagine and try out plots that may support narrative meaning and thereby movement in the process of recovery. Our findings render recovery as ambiguous and openended processes of narrative meaning-making, enacted through everyday activities that involve interactions with others, adding to similar findings in other studies (Lindström et al, 2013;Mattingly, 1998;Ulfseth et al, 2015Ulfseth et al, , 2016. Emerging from our analysis, we would like to explore further how we may understand processes of narrative meaning-making in recovery as collective, as well as discuss possible implications for practice based on our findings.…”

“…Demonstrating the relationality of narratives of recovery, several studies show how everyday activities that put us in touch with others are particularly valuable to create meaning. When doing activities together, the persons involved try out possible plots in collaboration, seeking to create narratives that make meaning to everyone involved (Lindström et al, 2013;Ørjasaeter et al, 2017;Reed et al, 2018;Ulfseth et al, 2015Ulfseth et al, , 2016.…”