Narrative, identity and mental health: How men with serious mental illness re-story their lives through sport and exercise

Abstract

Objectives: It has been suggested that mental illness threatens identity and sense of self when one's personal story is displaced by dominant illness narratives focussing on deficit and dysfunction. One role of therapy, therefore, is to allow individuals to re-story their life in a more positive way which facilitates the reconstruction of a meaningful identity and sense of self. This research explores the ways in which involvement in sport and exercise may play a part in this process. Method:We used an interpretive approach which included semi-structured interviews and participant observation with 11 men with serious mental illness to gather stories of participants' sport and exercise experiences. We conducted an analysis of narrative to explore the more general narrative types which were evident in participants' accounts. Findings:We identified three narrative types underlying participants' talk about sport and exercise: (a) an action narrative about "going places and doing stuff"; (b) an achievement narrative about accomplishment through effort, skill or courage; (c) a relationship narrative of shared experiences to talk about combined with opportunities to talk about those experiences. We note that these narrative types differ significantly from -and may be considered alternatives to -dominant illness narratives. Conclusion:This study provides an alternative perspective on how sport and exercise can help men with serious mental illness by providing the narrative resources which enabled participants to re-story aspects of their lives through creating and sharing personal stories through which they rebuilt or maintained a positive sense of self and identity.

Peer support for carers of people with dementia

“…Qualitative narrative research conducted by Carless and Douglas (2008) noted that mental health recovery is not just about alleviating symptoms, it is about rebuilding the self, social identity and a sense of hopefulness for the future. Exercise can deliver a sense of meaning, purpose and optimism.…”

Living, resisting, and playing the part of athlete: Narrative tensions in elite sport

“…These include, for example, spinal cord injury (e.g., Smith & Sparkes, 2002;Sparkes & Smith, 2003), mental health (e.g., Carless & Douglas, 2008;Carless & Sparkes, 2008), eating practices (e.g., Papathomas & Lavallee, 2006;Busanich, McGannon & Schinke, 2012), flow (Sparkes & Partington, 2003), aging (e.g., Phoenix & Smith, 2011), and professional sport (e.g., Douglas & Carless, 2006a. Building on this growing tradition, we use a narrative approach in this study to explore the stories shared by elite and professional sportspeople; the cultural narratives these stories draw upon; and their implications for identity development and life experiences.…”

“…As a result, it can come to exhibit a disproportionate influence on individuals' lives, to the point that it may "'colonize' an individual's sense of self, constricting identity options to those that are problem saturated" (Neimeyer, Herrero & Botella, 2006, p. 132). A potential solution is the availability of alternative types of story that provide narrative resources to support a 'restorying' of self and identity through resisting a dominant narrative (see McLeod, 1997;Sparkes & Smith, 2003;Carless & Douglas, 2008Frank, 2010;Freeman, 2010;Phoenix & Smith, 2011;Busanich et al, 2012).…”

Opening up dialogues and airways: using vignettes to enrich asthma understandings in sport and exercise

“…Advocates of the narrative approach in healthcare (for example, Frank 1995, Bochner 2001, Charon 2006, Carless and Douglas, 2008, Lewis 2011, Sparkes and Smith 2011 argue that investigating people's lived illness experience can bridge what may be very different understandings of asthma held by patients and clinicians. Debates about what constitutes a narrative approach, narrative methods or illness narratives (e.g.…”