Storying Mental Illness and Personal Recovery

‘Through a broad and expansive overview, beautifully interweaving research findings with individuals’ own stories, they provide a highly readable and articulate conception of the ways in which narrative identity is central to understanding the causes, consequences, and lived experience of mental illness. With great deftness, they present a counter-narrative of cultural conceptions of mental illness that help the reader to understand the complexity of living a meaningful life in the midst of mental illness.’ Robyn Fivush, Emory University, USA‘This new work comprehensively tackles directly issues of narrative identity, mental illness, and personal recovery. It delves deeply into how persons make personal sense of the challenges which surround mental illness, as well as their own emergent path to a fully meaningful life. While it reminds us of these neglected issues, it also breaks new ground, bringing scientific inquiry to these deeply subjective aspects of human experience.’ Paul H. Lysaker, IUPUI School of Science, USA‘Psychiatric illness is a thief in the night, upending our lives by stealing the very stories we live by. In this groundbreaking study of narrative identity and psychopathology, Dorthe Thomsen and her colleagues reveal the horrific costs incurred, as well as the occasional benefits, by examining how people afflicted with major mental disorders make narrative sense of their lived experience. Blending rigorous scholarship with deep empathy, the authors chart the many variations on the theme of psychological suffering that appear in first-person accounts, and they show that hope for a better life lies in narrative repair – that is, in the prospect of re-writing our life stories to recover what has been taken away from us, and thereby re-affirming personal wellbeing and human connection.’ Dan P. McAdams, The Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology, Northwestern University, USA‘This elegantly written and scientifically sound book shows that narrative psychology provides unique insights into mental illness not captured by traditional medical and psychological research, covering themes that humans hold most dear: themes of loss of time, loss of future, loss of self, loss of relationships, and loss of life. This timely book not only provides a moving account of lived experience of mental illness, but offers the methodological tools to study it further, with the ultimate hope of improving our treatments, which are, admittedly, in need of reform. A must-read book for clinicians, researchers, and anyone interested in understanding mental illness from the inside out.’ Carla Sharp, University of Houston, USA‘This is an important book. The focus on life stories aligns with the global movement toward positioning experiential knowledge of individuals living with mental health issues at the center of health and social care systems. Narrative approaches will become increasingly important in mental health care, and this book makes an original contribution which has wide relevance to anyone trying to support individuals experiencing mental health issues. I thoroughly recommend it.’ Mike Slade, University of Nottingham, UK

Dorthe Kirkegaard Thomsen is a professor of psychology at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is a prominent scholar in narrative identity, which she has studied extensively over the past decade. She has authored more than 60 scientific papers and has received several grants and awards in recognition of her work.

Tine Holm completed her PhD on life stories in schizophrenia, then received funding to examine trauma within psychiatric settings particularly in relation to force treatment. In parallel with her research, she works as a clinical psychologist at an outpatient unit for individuals with severe mental illness and co-occurring substance use disorder.

Rikke Amalie Agergaard Jensen received her PhD in psychology in 2020 from Aarhus University, Denmark. As an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark, she continues to study stories about the lived experience of mental illness. Specifically, she concentrates on children of parents with mental illness and family stories to aid the development of family-centered treatment and to mitigate social inequalities and stigmatization in mental healthcare.

Majse Lind is an assistant professor at Aalborg University, Denmark. She is a prominent scholar in research on life stories and psychopathology, particularly in the subarea of personality disorders, and has received several awards for this work.

Anne Mai Pedersen received her MSc in psychology from Aarhus University, Denmark, where she is now pursuing a PhD degree. Her primary field of research is life stories in people with mental and somatic illness, with a focus on narrative identity in psychopathology and specifically in bipolar disorder.