An analysis of discourses shaping mental health practitioners

Editorial: International Perspectives on Mental Health and Mental Health Social Work

The following collection of articles reflects the diversity of research, policy and practice in mental health social work in a range of international contexts [...].

" Being mutually involved in recovery". A hermeneutic exploration of nurses' experiences of patient participation in psychiatric care

Purpose

This study aims at exploring how psychiatric nurses’ experiences of patient participation could be understood from a caring science perspective.

Methods

The design was inspired by clinical application research., which is a hermeneutic approach developed within caring science research. . In this study data were co-created during four reflective group dialogues where five participants’ experiences of patient participation were reflected on in the light of caring science theory and research. The transcribed dialogues were subjected to a thematic, hermeneutic interpretation.

Results

The interpretation gave rise to three themes; giving room for the patient to find his/her own pathway, strengthening personhood, and being in a balanced communion. From these themes an underlying pattern of the meaning of participation as being mutually involved in the patients’ process of recovery arose.

Conclusion

From a caring science perspective the meaning of psychiatric nurses experiences of patient participation could be understood as an interpersonal process reflecting the reciprocity in human relationships. This means a shift in understanding of patient participation from procedures related to the planning of nursing care, to understanding participation as a process focusing on the mutual involvement of patients and nurses in the patients’ process of recovery.

Adaptation of a school-based mental health literacy curriculum: from Canadian to English classrooms

BACKGROUND

School-based mental health literacy (MHL) interventions are increasingly trialled outside of the country in which they were developed. However, there is a lack of published studies that qualitatively explore their cultural adaptation. This study investigated the reasons for adaptations made and suggested to a Canadian MHL curriculum (The Guide) within the English school context.

METHOD

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 school staff responsible for the planning and/or implementation of The Guide across three schools in the South East of England, as part of the Education for Wellbeing (EfW) feasibility study. Transcripts were analysed using a hybrid, deductive-inductive thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Adaptations made and suggested included dropping and emphasising content, and adapting language, examples and references. Most adaptations were proactive and related to The Guide's implementation methods, including developing more interactive and student-led approaches. Staff Capacity and Expertise, Timetabling, and Accessibility of Resources were identified as logistical reasons for adaptations. Philosophical reasons included Consistency of Messages, Student Characteristics, Reducing Stigma and Empowering Students, National and Local Context, and Appropriate Pedagogic Practices.

CONCLUSION

Overall, recommendations were for immediately implementable lesson plans informed by teachers' knowledge about best pedagogic practices in England. Adequate training, attended by both senior leadership and those implementing, was also emphasised. While ensuring that the core components are clear, MHL interventions should be developed with a necessary level of flexibility to accommodate contextual characteristics. Future research should ensure that adaptations are captured through process and implementation evaluations conducted alongside efficacy trials.

Methodology and mental illness: resistance and restorying

Concerns with social justice have been traditionally associated with a modernist concept of the individual whose actions express an underlying, essential and unified self. This paper compares the usefulness of two methodologies (post-structuralist and narrative) that are based on a rejection of identity of a unified self and compares their usefulness in relation to the development of a social justice paradigm within mental health. It considers how professional forms of knowledge may be deconstructed by post-structural analyses, arguing that these have also been used by service users to articulate more enabling discursive alternatives. The notion of agency is central to our understanding of social justice. We question the commonly held assumption that although post-structuralism deconstructs power and challenges its legitimacy, it is nevertheless unsuited to facilitating the necessary agency to put forward viable alternatives. The second half of the paper considers how narrative research offers greater emancipatory potential by enabling the research subject to author their stories and thereby brings about their own subjective transformation. Nevertheless, the interpretation of people's stories by researchers may result in the imposition of narrative templates that erase complexities and contribute to the perpetuation of oppression. This raises ethical implications in relation to how people's stories are interpreted.

Staff's experiences of a person-centered health education group intervention for people with a persistent mental illness

Patient education in mental health care is a conventional intervention to increase patients' knowledge about their illness and treatment. A provider-centered focus in patient education may put patients in a passive role, which can counteract their processes of recovery. There is an increasing emphasis on recovery-oriented practice, an approach that is aligned with the service user perspective, but little is known about health care staff's perspectives on person-centered mental health care. A qualitative approach was used to describe staff's experiences of being group leaders in a person-centered health education intervention in municipal services for persons with a persistent mental illness. The analysis of staff experiences revealed three core categories: (1) implications of the division of responsibility among local authorities, (2) awareness of facilitating factors of growth, and (3) the meaning of dialogue. These formed the theme Preconditions for Person-Centered Care. Further research is required to explore larger economic, political, and social structures as backdrops to person-centered mental health care, from the perspective of service users, families, health professionals, and the community at large.