New roads paved on losses: photovoice perspectives about recovery from mental illness (original) (raw)
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Community Mental Health Journal, 2020
Personal recovery has become a guiding paradigm in mental health services. Most research on recovery is based on the exploration of personal stories of service users through verbal methods. As not everyone with psychiatric problems is able to verbally formulate a recovery narrative, the current study assesses personal recovery through PhotoVoice, with emphasis on visualisation, small stories and participation. Two ten-week groups were conducted with 18 participants living with severe mental illnesses. They participated in both the collection and analysis of visual narratives. Across the images produced by participants, four main recovery themes were found : People, Places, Activities and Finding Meaning. Compared to other frameworks, the emphasis participants put on the theme Places adds value to the understanding of recovery processes. Furthermore, participants showed that recovery is about dealing with vulnerabilities as well as aspiring a meaningful life. This study demonstrates that exploring visual narratives is powerful within recovery oriented mental health.
Facades of Suffering: Clients' Photo Stories about Mental Illness
In this article, photo stories are examined that were the result of working with photography as a therapeutic instrument dealing with suffering in mental health care settings. The purpose is to describe the role of facades in the process of suffering and acceptance. Clients took photographs, talked about them in group meetings, and exhibited them to a broader audience. Their photo stories were analyzed using a mixed-methods model. Data from two narrative approaches (semiotics and hermeneutics) were compared with information from other informants and official records to find discrepancies between the photo story and the real life context. Although facades are usually perceived as an obstacle for personal growth, the visual narratives revealed that facades can function as an alternative to common acceptance strategies, such as facing one’s losses and reconciliation. Facades can create a distance between the person and the suffering. We conclude that visual narratives can reveal and foster agency in clients.
Psychiatric Services, 2013
Objectives-Recovery from mental disorders encompasses multiple interrelated dimensions. This study used photovoice to explore how individuals with serious mental illness and a history of substance abuse and homelessness envisioned their recovery. A dimensional recovery model was applied to examine how the interrelationships between recovery dimensions supported consumers' recovery journeys. Methods-Photovoice is a participatory research method that empowers people by giving them cameras to document their experiences and inform social action. Sixteen consumers recruited from two supported housing agencies participated in six weekly sessions to which they brought photographs that they took of persons and events in their lives that reflected recovery and wellness and discussed the meaning of the photographs in individual interviews and group sessions. The authors used pile-sorting, grounded theory, and a deductive template-analytic technique to analyze narrative and visual data. Results-Spirituality, life achievements, and receiving and providing support were the most salient themes that emerged from the analysis and illustrate beneficial interrelationships between recovery dimensions. Participants discussed how they relied on their spirituality to support their sobriety and cope with addictions-aspects of clinical recovery. Educational and vocational achievements represented gains in functioning that contributed to increasing self-esteem and selfagency and reducing self-stigma. Social dimensions of recovery, such as receiving and giving support to loved ones, rippled through consumers' lives reducing isolation and enhancing their self-worth. Conclusions-The findings illustrate the value of participatory methods to understand what recovery signified to people with serious mental illness and how understanding the interrelationships between recovery dimensions can inform recovery-oriented services. The recovery model has become a major force in shaping mental health services, policies, and research in the United States and other developed countries (1,2). The main tenet of recovery is that people with mental disorders have the capacity and resiliency to overcome the devastating consequences of mental illness or substance abuse-especially when given the right supports-and can develop a fulfilling life in the community (3).
Arts & Health
Background: In the context of a growing body of literature on incorporating visual media in researching well-being and mental health, this systematic review examined the evidence of using photography-based research methods in exploring recovery from mental distress, their outcomes, but also limitations and challenges encountered by researchers. Methodology: Six cross-disciplinary electronic databases (CINAHL, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, Arts & Humanities) were systematically searched resulting in a total of 15 qualitative and mixed-methods studies included in a thematic synthesis. Results: Photo-elicitation and photovoice were identified as the main photographic methods employed in recovery research along with less common, but nonetheless creative, techniques. Four key themes were identified through thematic analysis in photography-based recovery studies: enhanced understanding, collaboration and empowerment, situatedness, and storytelling. The results of this review revealed photography as a valuable methodological tool with potential to contribute to conceptualising recovery from the stance of research participants, but also facilitate and support their recovery processes. Conclusions: Recovery research can benefit from the use of photographic methods that are widely accessible, versatile, and interactive. They may offer mental health researchers alternative ways to explore individuals' perspective on recovery in ways that are creative, empowering, and supportive of their recovery.
Photovoice in mental illness research: A review and recommendations
Health (London, England : 1997), 2015
In the past few decades, photovoice research has gained prominence, providing context rich insights through participants' photographs and narratives. Emergent within the field of photovoice research have been health studies embracing diverse illness issues. The goal of this scoping review article was to describe the use of photovoice in mental illness, paying particular attention to the following: (1) the study design and methods, (2) empirical findings, and (3) dissemination strategies. Nine qualitative studies (seven drawing from primary and two secondary analyses) featuring diverse approaches to analysis of data comprising individual and/or focus group interviews using participant-produced photographs were included in the review. Described were participant's experiences of living with mental illness and/or substance overuse, including feelings of loneliness and being marginalized, along with their support care needs (e.g. physical, emotional, and spiritual) to garner self...
Acknowledgements: there were no industrial links or affiliations. For building an exhibition we were funded by funds, one public and one related to health insurance companies, but this was limited to the exhibition and did not concern the research and development of the intervention. The research was done as part of our job as researcher and innovation staff member in the service of GGnet. Disclosure of interests: there is no conflict of interest. Abstract Our aim was to develop and evaluate an intervention that can be used in recovery oriented care to promote recovery processes and goals as found in the CHIME framework [1]. Using the Appreciative cycle and principles from the MRC-Framework for the development and Evaluation of complex interventions an intervention with photography has been designed and tested on 3 long stay wards of a mental health care hospital. 15 Service users participated and were photographed during 4 sessions. The intervention built on the expertise that already existed about rehabilitation approaches, especially the Strengths approach [2] and the findings from earlier studies into hermeneutic photography by the author. The intervention proved to inspire hope and meaning giving in service users and contributed to a transformation of relationships between service users and their mentor nurses. These relationships became more reciprocal and equal. The intervention yielded opportunities for service users to express their wishes and values in life. In this way they made a representation of the persons who they are. The photographs probably contribute to a greater self-esteem of the service users and may inspire them to use the action and what it meant to them for further recovery. The intervention put the service user in the lead and contributed to more mutuality in the relationship with the mentor nurse.
ABSTRACT This article is about an intervention or approach in mental health care that has been developed from hermeneutics, more specifically the hermeneutics of Ricoeur. In this intervention photography is used as a means to assist patients in a process of meaning making from experiences in their life world. It aims at empowerment and strengthening the agency of patients. It does so by facilitating storytelling. Mime-sis, as interpreted by Ricoeur, was found to be a central concept with which we could explain the therapeutic working of the approach and legitimize its ethical claims of empowerment and recovery. Another aspect is the concordance between narrative and action, as described by Ricoeur, which has a pendant in the goal orientation of the photography intervention. At the same time demonstrations and experiences from professional practice (nurses applying the intervention) will give us feedback on the theory and enrich it with new insights, e.g. on 'icon-ic representation' .