Voices of Experience: Narratives of Mental Health Survivors

Voices of Experience contains a wide variety of stories and narratives written by mental health survivors. These stories explore the way in which the survivors have discovered, recovered, coped, grown, and thrived through their experience of living with mental health problems. Many have developed their own self–management techniques and strategies for living. All have found ways to combat the stigma and discrimination. The narratives emphasise the importance of peer support and self–help, but the book challenges simplistic explanations of recovery and offers a critical angle to our understanding of what it means to experience mental health problems.
The skills and knowledge of the contributors offer a guide to anybody who may be struggling with 21st century life; they illustrate that those who have battled with the complexities of existence, and found their own unique ways of surviving, learning and moving on, can teach us all a great deal about how to live in our modern world.
The editors reinforce the importance of story telling in understanding a person’s experience of mental health problems. They also offer guidance for mental health workers and professionals within the context of current mental health policies in the UK.

Nota biograficzna:
Thurstine Basset is a social worker who now runs his own independent training and development consultancy. His current clients include the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and Education not Discrimination at Rethink. He is the Chair of the Mental Health Training Forum, Middlesex University and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Brighton. Together with Theo Stickley, he is joint editor of Teaching Mental Health (Wiley, 2007) and Learning About Mental Health Practice (Wiley, 2008).
Theo Stickley is Associate Professor of Mental Health in the School of Nursing at the University of Nottingham. Previously, he trained and worked in both me ntal health nursing and counselling. Theo has led on a number of educational research projects in collaboration with people who use mental health services. He uses narrative as a research method, especially amongst people engaging with arts activities. He leads the East Midlands Arts and Health Research Group; he is also a Director of City Arts, Nottingham, and leads the Art in Mind programme of work.

Okładka tylna:
Voices of Experience contains a wide variety of stories and narratives written by mental health survivors. These stories explore the way in which the survivors have discovered, recovered, coped, grown, and thrived through their experience of living with mental health problems. Many have developed their own self–management techniques and strategies for living. All have found ways to combat the stigma and discrimination. The narratives emphasise the importance of peer support and self–help, but the book challenges simplistic explanations of recovery and offers a critical angle to our understanding of what it means to experience mental health problems.
The skills and knowledge of the contributors offer a guide to anybody who may be struggling with 21st century life; they illustrate that those who have battled with the complexities of existence, and found their own unique ways of surviving, learning and moving on, can teach us all a great deal about how to live in our modern world.
The editors reinforce the importance of story telling in understanding a person’s experience of mental health problems. They also offer guidance for mental health workers and professionals within the context of current mental health policies in the UK.