‘FROM MENTAL HEALTH 'RECOVERY' TO RECOVERING OUR STORIES: CHALLENGING THE NARRATIVE

1 Nov 2016

Hosted by the ISS21 Mental Health and Disability Research Cluster, and organised by the School of Applied Social Studies,the Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Cork, in association with the Irish Institute in Mental Health Nursing, and the Critical Voices Network Ireland

 “People with lived experience” has become the catch-phrase to designate those who speak directly to “living” lives affected by “mental illness”. It is now commonplace for mental health organisations to solicit personal stories from “people with lived experience” about their fall into and subsequent recovery from “mental illness”. These stories function to build the organisational “brand” regardless of program quality. But life stories are shaped and constructed by social, political, economic and cultural realities that necessitate an analysis of inequity.

This master class is based on an event called “Recovering Our Stories” which was held in Toronto, Canada in 2011. It traces how “our” stories have suddenly been understood as useful by dominant hegemonic orders and incorporated into neo-liberalist mental health agendas in order to support and sustain the validity of health service systems. The event sought to mark and disrupt this trajectory, asking those who reveal their stories to consider doing so in a way that is politically accountable and focused on social justice change. And through this small act of organising resistance, we ask those who solicit stories: in whose interest?

*Taken from Costa, L., Voronka, J., Landry, D., Reid, J., McFarlane, B., Reville, D. and Church, K. (2012) “Recovering our Stories”: A Small Act of Resistance. Studies in Social Justice, 6, 1, 85-101.

Kathryn Church is Director and Associate Professor in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University. A sociologist by training, Kathryn uses cultural forms --most recently public exhibits -- to link social science inquiry to public education. She is co-curator of Out from Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember an award-winning exhibit of activist disability history now in the permanent collection of the Canadian Human Rights Museum. Kathryn’s involvement as a Mad movement ally dates back 30 years to the first formations of “consumer participation” and the use of psychiatric survivor narratives in/against mental health policy formation. She is the author of Forbidden Narratives: Critical Autobiography as Social Science, and a dozen plain-text documents on psychiatric survivor-led economic development initiatives, and the documentary film Working Like Crazy.  Co-researcher for the study Mental Health Recovery: Users and Refusers, she is currently engaged in the activist project of blending disability and Mad studies.

Danielle Landryteaches Mad People’s History in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University. She is also a PhD student in sociology at York University in Toronto. Her SSHRC-funded doctoral research aims to re-theorize how we understand accessibility for people with psychiatric disabilities in the workplace. This research will involve conducting a case study of social enterprises currently operating in Ontario that are run by psychiatric consumer/survivors. Danielle’s MA research used critical discourse analysis to investigate psychiatric survivor-led research in Canada and the UK. As an active member of Toronto’s mad community, Danielle was involved in the Psychiatric Disabilities Anti-Violence Coalition and she is currently secretary of the board of the Empowerment Council, an independent systemic advocacy group operating within Canada largest mental health and addictions hospital (CAMH).

Organised by Lydia Sapouna, School of Applied Social Studies and Harry Gijbels, Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Cork, Ireland, in association with the Irish Institute of Mental Health Nursing (IIMHN), ISS21’s Mental Health and Disability Cluster, and the Critical Voices Network Ireland.   

Masterclass flyer;