Stories of Rediscovering Agency

Abstract

As part of a larger study, we offered Everyday Life Rehabilitation (ELR) as a model for integrated occupational therapy in sheltered or supported housing facilities, to enable meaningful daily occupations for people with psychiatric disabilities. Our aim with this study was to understand how participants made sense of their occupational transformations in the context of their everyday life and life history. We carried out qualitative interviews and field observations with 16 participants with psychosis-related disorders. We used narrative analysis and disclosed stories of "rediscovering agency," referring to occupational and identity transformations. A parallel outcome study has shown positive results for participants, and by using narrative inquiry we contribute with a deeper understanding of the meaning making of their transformations and mechanisms of the intervention; i.e., hope, extended value of reaching goals, reentering the majority world, transparency of process, and attunement to the individual. The findings support the use of the ELR intervention.

A narrative study of mental health recovery: exploring unique, open-ended and collective processes

“…Our findings show how both Brad, Carl, Mary and Sandra use their past and present experiences from everyday activities as resources to imagine and try out plots that may support narrative meaning and thereby movement in the process of recovery. Our findings render recovery as ambiguous and openended processes of narrative meaning-making, enacted through everyday activities that involve interactions with others, adding to similar findings in other studies (Lindström et al, 2013;Mattingly, 1998;Ulfseth et al, 2015Ulfseth et al, , 2016. Emerging from our analysis, we would like to explore further how we may understand processes of narrative meaning-making in recovery as collective, as well as discuss possible implications for practice based on our findings.…”

“…Demonstrating the relationality of narratives of recovery, several studies show how everyday activities that put us in touch with others are particularly valuable to create meaning. When doing activities together, the persons involved try out possible plots in collaboration, seeking to create narratives that make meaning to everyone involved (Lindström et al, 2013;Ørjasaeter et al, 2017;Reed et al, 2018;Ulfseth et al, 2015Ulfseth et al, , 2016.…”

A qualitative study of how people with severe mental illness experience living in sheltered housing with a private fully equipped apartment

“…There is a range of reviews on the effects of different forms of sheltered housing [ 3 , 5 , 11 , 17 – 22 ]. Some of these have focused on participants’ hospital use before and after housing interventions [ 21 , 22 ], residential stability [ 5 , 10 , 22 ], preventing homelessness for individuals with mental and substance disorders [ 19 ] and among individuals discharged from hospitals [ 21 ], and how the residents made sense of their occupational transformations in the context of their everyday life and life history [ 23 ]. However, relatively few publications have investigated how people with SMI experience living in sheltered housing [ 4 , 7 , 16 , 24 ].…”

Meaning-making in occupational therapy interventions: a scoping review

“…Of the 16 articles included in the review, six were published in 2017 (Fletcher, 2017;Leufstadius, 2017;Lund et al, 2017;Nilsson & Lundgren, 2017;Rijkers-de Boer et al, 2017;Verdonck et al, 2017), one in 2016(Van't Leven et al, 2016, two in 2015 (Chippendale & Boltz, 2015;Folan et al, 2015), one in 2013 (Lindström et al, 2013), tree in 2012 (Chiu et al, 2012;Mason & Conneeley, 2012;Zafran et al, 2012), one in 2010 (Cipriani et al, 2010), one in 2009 (Bazyk & Bazyk, 2009), and one in 2008 (Dubouloz et al, 2008). Most of the studies were carried out in the USA (4) and in Sweden (4) (see Table 2).…”

“…Concerning the practice setting of occupational therapy, most of the articles concentrated on the areas of practice of Gerontology (6) (Chippendale & Boltz, 2015;Cipriani et al, 2010;Fletcher, 2017;Nilsson & Lundgren, 2017;Rijkers-de Boer et al, 2017;Van't Leven et al, 2016) and Mental Health (4) (Leufstadius, 2017;Lindström et al, 2013;Lund et al, 2017;Zafran et al, 2012), followed by Rehabilitation (3) (Dubouloz et al, 2008;Folan et al, 2015;Verdonck et al, 2017) and Childhood (2) (Bazyk & Bazyk, 2009;Chiu et al, 2012). Of the 16 articles, 14 were qualitative studies (Chiu et al, 2012;Cipriani et al, 2010;Dubouloz et al, 2008;Folan et al, 2015;Leufstadius, 2017;Lindström et al, 2013;Lund et al, 2017;Mason & Conneeley, 2012;Nilsson & Lundgren, 2017;Rijkers-de Boer et al, 2017;Bazyk & Bazyk, 2009;Van't Leven et al, 2016;Verdonck et al, 2017;Zafran et al, 2012) and two were mixedmethod (Chippendale & Boltz, 2015;Fletcher, 2017). For data collection, eight studies used interviews as their exclusive method (Dubouloz et al, 2008;Folan et al, 2015;Leufstadius, 2017;Lund et al, 2017;Nilsson & Lundgren, 2017;Van't Leven et al, 2016;Verdonck et al, 2017;<...>…”