From the margin to the centre: women's experiences of inpatient care for the management of mental illness

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of women who had been inpatients in an acute care setting for the management of mental illness. Whilst there has been considerable research in the broad area of women and mental health there is little contemporary published New Zealand work that illuminates gendered constructions of women's worlds and how these might be perpetuated in mental health care. This study draws on narrative as method to facilitate the women to tell their stories in a manner that enables them to be heard and that also honours their individual subjectivities and identities. Six women volunteered and commenced participation in this study, five of these women completed the process. In order to pay attention to the multiplicities, complexities and ambiguities of the five participating women's experiences in the world, the study is located in a feminist postmodern psychoanalytic framework. This location enables attention to be paid the partial subjectivities of the participants and the researcher as they co-contribute to the development of meanings. In addition it has exposed and enabled a substantive critique of the socio-political and cultural contexts of these women's everyday worlds. While women's stories are narrated in the context of the study, the discussion and analysis is shifted to a theoretical location to protect their vulnerabilities. From this analysis three subtexts emerge. They are: Living the Myths and Lies, Being a Good Girl and Safe Places: Care or Containment? The women's narratives highlight how their mental health care experiences have served to perpetuate control, containment and marginality of the women both from themselves and from others. This study has also illuminated the fluidity of meanings within self as these women journey from the margin to the centre. The study raises significant questions surrounding the ways in which these women experienced inpatient mental health care.