Narrative approaches in mental health: preserving the emancipatory tradition

Narrative approaches have exercised an emancipatory influence within mental health. In this article, it is suggested that there is a risk that the emancipatory tradition associated with narrative may be co-opted through contemporary mental health strategy by a narrow agenda which promotes a particular Western and neoliberal form of citizenship. This may limit the way recovery can be imagined by equating it solely with the future-orientated individual who strives, above all, to be economically independent. To resist this, it is suggested that narrative in mental health should be approached with recourse to therapeutic thinking which promotes a relational ethos of ‘recovery together’. The ‘recovery together’ model is subsequently considered in relation to narrative research on temporal understandings which have been conducted in disability studies and in the area of chronic illness. These studies point towards the value of a relational orientation towards well-being in the present, rather than fixating on future goals. It is suggested that a relational philosophy of the present might be usefully incorporated into narrative approaches when working therapeutically with people suffering from mental distress. It is argued that this might enable users and practitioners to extend the available narrative templates and to imagine recovery in diverse ways which support personal transformation and, ultimately, contribute to social change.