TY - JOUR

T1 - “It is a different world in here”

T2 - collective identification and shared experiential knowledge between psychiatric inpatients

AU - Kessing, Malene L.

PY - 2020/5/1

Y1 - 2020/5/1

N2 - This paper explores the social relations between inpatients in psychiatric wards. Combining Barker's (2002) concept of ‘collective illness identity’ with Nelson's (1993) concept of ‘epistemological communities’, I draw attention to the inpatients’ collective identification and experiential knowledge. Through the analysis, three aspects of the inpatients’ relationships are unfolded. First, how the inpatients, through bodily expressions and narrative accounts, construct a collective illness identity based on shared experiences of symptoms and suffering. Second, the ways in which the inpatients use their shared experiential knowledge to support one another and challenge the mental health professionals. Third, how the inpatients’ reflections on the long-term potential of their relationships reveal a number of concerns related to their continuation. Centrally, the paper points to the potential and challenges that arise from the inpatients’ relations to one another and their embeddedness in a specific time and space. Empirically, the paper draws on five months of participant observation conducted in two psychiatric wards in Denmark and interviews with 14 psychiatric patients.

AB - This paper explores the social relations between inpatients in psychiatric wards. Combining Barker's (2002) concept of ‘collective illness identity’ with Nelson's (1993) concept of ‘epistemological communities’, I draw attention to the inpatients’ collective identification and experiential knowledge. Through the analysis, three aspects of the inpatients’ relationships are unfolded. First, how the inpatients, through bodily expressions and narrative accounts, construct a collective illness identity based on shared experiences of symptoms and suffering. Second, the ways in which the inpatients use their shared experiential knowledge to support one another and challenge the mental health professionals. Third, how the inpatients’ reflections on the long-term potential of their relationships reveal a number of concerns related to their continuation. Centrally, the paper points to the potential and challenges that arise from the inpatients’ relations to one another and their embeddedness in a specific time and space. Empirically, the paper draws on five months of participant observation conducted in two psychiatric wards in Denmark and interviews with 14 psychiatric patients.

KW - collective illness identity

KW - experiential knowledge

KW - inpatients

KW - mental illness

KW - Social relations

U2 - 10.1111/1467-9566.13053

DO - 10.1111/1467-9566.13053

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 31965596

AN - SCOPUS:85078803351

VL - 42

SP - 724

EP - 738

JO - Sociology of Health and Illness

JF - Sociology of Health and Illness

SN - 0141-9889

IS - 4

ER -