Narrative and Mental Health : Reimagining Theory and Practice

Narratives surrounding mental health are intertextually and culturally embedded in a constantly evolving web of narratives, whether it is in research and treatment practices in psychology and psychiatry, the professional categorization and definition of mental health issues, people's own definitions of mental health, or medial as well as artistic representations of different mental health states.

Narrative and Mental Health: Reimagining Theory and Practice investigates the nexus between narratives and mental health from an interdisciplinary perspective, offering a dialogue between psychology and psychiatry and other fields such as social work, linguistics, philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies. Contributors from various disciplines and countries across the globe address questions surrounding mental health and illness in individual as well as cultural stories while also attending to their mutual influence. Narrative interviews, narrative psychology, narrative therapy, diary writing, and psychodynamic processes are explored alongside oral history, news media, graphic novels, film, fiction, and literary autobiographies. At the same time, the volume acknowledges the potential limitations of these narrative paradigms, especially when coupled with normative expectations of truthfulness, coherence, and comprehensiveness. From here, mental health emerges as a dynamic concept that is subject to change over time and which deserves close attention both in research and practice.

Jarmila Mildorf is Associate Professor for English Literary and Cultural Studies at Paderborn University, Germany. She is a member of the International Society for the Study of Narrative, the European Narratology Network, the International Network for Address Research, and the German Network for Narrative Medicine, on the advisory board of the research center Narrare, and co-editor of the book series Narratives and Mental Health (Brill) and the Romanian journal Eon.

Elisabeth Punzi is a licensed psychologist and Associate Professor at the Department of Social Work, and Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, Gothenburg University. Her research includes critical perspectives on diagnostic systems and established treatment methods and the prerequisites for providing client-centered care.

Christoph Singer is Professor for British and Anglophone Cultural Studies in the Department of British Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He has published anthologies on intersections of Middlebrow & Modernism, the iconography of Dante & Milton, and on spaces of Well-Being. His second book discusses the temporality of narratives in times of crisis, particularly the experience of existential waiting.