‘Stealing Me from Myself’: Identity and Recovery in Personal Accounts of Mental Illness

Wisdom, Jennifer P.; Bruce, Kevin; Saedi, Goal Auzeen; Weis, Teresa; Green, Carla A.

doi:10.1080/00048670802050579

Cited by 88 publications

(99 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Several scholars have analyzed such first-person accounts to discern common themes across recovery narratives. 16,21,22 A first theme emerging from these analyses is that recovery is routinely considered a process rather than an outcome-a deeply personal experience related to an individual's life aspirations. Saks 19 discovered that "I could be mentally ill and lead a rich and satisfying life."…”

Section: Highlightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Recovery and Severe Mental Illness: Description and Analysis

2014

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The notion of recovery has been embraced by key stakeholders across Canada and elsewhere. This has led to a proliferation of definitions, models, and research on recovery, making it vitally important to examine the data to disentangle the evidence from the rhetoric. In this paper, first we ask, what do people living with severe mental illness (SMI) say about recovery in autobiographical accounts? Second, what do they say about recovery in qualitative studies? Third, from what we have uncovered about recovery, can we learn anything from quantitative studies about proportions of people leading lives of recovery? Finally, can we identify interventions and approaches that may be consistent or inconsistent with the grounded notions of recovery unearthed in this paper? We found that people with mental illness frequently state that recovery is a journey, characterized by a growing sense of agency and autonomy, as well as greater participation in normative activities, such as employment, education, and community life. However, the evidence suggests that most people with SMI still live in a manner inconsistent with recovery; for example, their unemployment rate is over 80%, and they are disproportionately vulnerable to homelessness, stigma, and victimization. Research stemming from rehabilitation science suggests that recovery can be enhanced by various evidence-based services, such as supported employment, as well as by clinical approaches, such as shared decision making and peer support. But these are not routinely available. As such, significant systemic changes are necessary to truly create a recovery-oriented mental health system.

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Section: Highlightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These steps gather length and pace as recovery progresses, with Wisdom et al 21 describing a "striving for normalcy . .…”

Section: Highlightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovery and Severe Mental Illness: Description and Analysis

2014

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“…Whereas this could be interpreted as being incongruent with a qualitative methodology, we believe it was justified as a means of imposing an element of order on the search for narratives, especially because we were effectively faced with a sample of unknown size. Additionally, we did not want to introduce a sampling bias, as other researchers adopting similar approaches have, by restricting sampling to specific journals (Wisdom, Bruce, Saedi, Weis, & Green, 2008) or single Web sites (Headland, 2006 This strategy returned an overwhelming number of hits, most of which proved inappropriate on further investigation. This alerted us to the often erratic nature of electronic 6 searching and the need for careful consideration when entering search terms.…”

Section: Search Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some authorities have suggested that researchers should not be required to seek review by an ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB) when using material posted by individuals seeking public visibility (Frankel & Siang, 1999). Miles (2009) and Wisdom et al (2008) pointed out that their studies, using unsolicited narratives, were approved as exempt from institutional human subject protection requirements because they involved only the use of published or open source data. Robinson (2001) included a model for decision making regarding the need to pursue ethical approval when researching unsolicited narratives obtained from the Internet, but she omitted material obtained from personal Web sites.…”

Section: Requirement For Ethical Approvalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unsolicited Written Narratives as a Methodological Genre in Terminal Illness

O’Brien

Clark

2011

Qual Health Res

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Stories about illness have proved invaluable in helping health professionals to understand illness experiences. Such narratives have traditionally been solicited by researchers through interviews and the collection of personal writings, including diaries. These approaches are, however, researcher driven; the impetus for the creation of the story comes from the researcher and not the narrator. In recent years there has been exponential growth in illness narratives created by individuals, of their own volition, and made available for others to read in print or as Internet accounts. We sought to determine whether it was possible to identify such material for use as research data to explore the subject of living with the terminal illness amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/motor neuron disease. The contention being that these accounts are narrator driven and therefore focus on issues of greatest importance to the affected person. We encountered and sought to overcome a number of methodological and ethical challenges, which is our focus here. Keywordsend-of-life issues; ethics / moral perspectives; research, online; stories / storytelling 2 The ability to tell stories is a human trait which starts in childhood and subsequently continues to develop throughout life. Creating and telling personal narratives provides the means for individuals to make sense of their experiences, including illness. It could be argued that in order to arrive at an understanding of the personal experiences of living with serious illness it would be necessary to conduct in-depth interviews with people so affected, such as in the seminal studies by Williams (1984) and Bury (1982). More recently, however, researchers have explored the social context and meaning contained within autobiographical narratives, about a variety of conditions, obtained from both solicited written accounts (Robinson, 1990;Salander & Hamberg, 2005) and unsolicited written accounts (Hayne & Yonge, 1997;Bingley et al., 2006;Bengs, Johansson, Danielsson, Lehti, & Hammarström 2008;Ryan, Bannister & Anas, 2009;Page & Keady, 2010). Although each approach clearly has its place in the study of illness experiences, it is the use of unsolicited written illness narratives which is our focus here. Working in this way offers the potential to collect stories of illness, in particular those of a controversial or sensitive nature, without the usual interaction that exists between researcher and participant (Salander & Hamberg 2005); as such it is the narrator who determines the content of their story and not the researcher. Our intention here is to explore, and discuss, the challenges and limitations we encountered and the strategies we employed when using this method for a study exploring the personal experiences of living with the terminal illness amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/motor neuron disease (ALS/MND). ALS/MNDALS/MND is an often-rapidly progressive terminal neurodegenerative condition of unknown etiology which results in weakness and wasting of muscles, loss of mobility and d...

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“…The onset of psychosis is therefore likely to significantly affect and possibly disrupt these natural processes in an individuals' life. Indeed, Wisdom, Bruce, Saedi, Weis and Green (2008) found that the onset of mental illness was associated with a loss of self or previously held identity, which needed to be overcome, or at the very least managed, to obtain hope for recovery. The onset of psychosis in an individual is also likely to occur during a critical period in a sibling's development (late adolescence to early adulthood) and therefore may also impact the course of the sibling's development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A narrative analysis investigating the impact of first episode psychosis on siblings’ identity

2011

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Research investigating the impact and experience of first episode psychosis amongst siblings is limited. This study reports the findings of a narrative analysis of the accounts of four siblings, two male and two female, aged between 17 and 24 years, of young people with a first episode of psychosis. The aim of the analysis was to explore the impact of this experience on siblings' sense of self and their identity development and the roles they adopt within their families. The analysis focussed on the core narrative, tone and genre of each account as well as providing a cross-case analysis.This cross-case analysis indicated an overarching genre of 'rite of passage' within which a gender difference was interpreted. The emphasis in the accounts of the two young women was on finding personal meaning whereas, for the two young men, the emphasis was on taking up responsibilities. As found in other studies of serious mental health problems, siblings provide much direct and indirect care for their families. The implications for services providing support to siblings and families in early intervention services are discussed.2

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‘Stealing Me from Myself’: Identity and Recovery in Personal Accounts of Mental Illness

Cited by 88 publications

References 38 publications

Recovery and Severe Mental Illness: Description and Analysis

Recovery and Severe Mental Illness: Description and Analysis

Unsolicited Written Narratives as a Methodological Genre in Terminal Illness

A narrative analysis investigating the impact of first episode psychosis on siblings’ identity

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