Autoethnographies in Psychology and Mental Health : New Voices

This autoethnographic volume gathers a multiplicity of different voices in autoethnographic research from across psychology and mental health disciplines to address topics ranging from selfhood, trauma, emotional understanding, clinical psychology, and the experience of grief. Edited by two leading figures, this volume broadens the concept of psychology beyond its conventional, mainstream academic boundaries and challenges pre-conceived and received notions of what constitutes ‘psychology’ and ‘mental health’. This book collects new autoethnographic writers in psychology and mental health from across as diverse a range of disciplines and, in doing so, makes a strong case for the legitimacy of subjectivity, emotionality and lived experience as epistemic and pedagogic resources. The collection also troubles the related concept of ‘mental health.’ In contemporary times, this is either biomedically over-colonised (welcomed by some but resisted by others), often regarded by lay and professional people alike in terms of an ‘ordered or disordered’ binary (comforting for some but associated with stigma and othering for others), or, at worst, is reduced to a set of hackneyed memes – the stuff of Breakfast television (well-intentioned and undoubtedly reassuring and helpful for some but patronising and naïve for others). Overall, the volume promotes the subjective and lived-experiential voices of its contributors – the hallmark of autoethnographic writing. Autoethnographies in Psychology and Mental Health will be of interest to psychology and mental health students and professionals with an interest in qualitative inquiry as it intersects with autoethnography and mental health. List of Contributors Preface Arthur P. Bochner and Carolyn Ellis Acknowledgements 01. Introduction: The Importance of autoethnography for psychology and mental health Alec Grant and Jerome Carson 02. Us and Them Kevin Acott 03. The Shackles of Lupus, and the Redefining Path of Faith and Positive Psychology Ijeabalum Asike 04. Tell Fear, No: The Hope Is You (An Autoethnographic Account Of A Male Sexual Violence Survivor’s Journey Through An Academic Psychology Education, To Understand How To Bring Himself And Others Home Safely) Rob Balfour 05. Autistic, and Challenging the Neoliberal Academy in Hong Kong Yulin Cheng and Alec Grant 06. My Changing Journey Amanda Costello 07. My Life with Dyslexia: An autoethnograpy Nicola Cross 08. Laughter, Joy, and Mental Health: An autoethnographic case study of Joe Hoare Joe Hoare and Freda Gonot-Schoupinsky 09. A Grief Odyssey Robert Hurst 10. Cultural Impact on Professional Identity: Struggling to connect with professional titles Adeela Irfan 11. A Conversational Autoethnography on Experiencing Loss and Grief Marcin Kafar and Justyna Ratkowska-Pasikowska 12. Pandemic Detectives: A phone corpse on the university campus” Dariusz Kubinowski and Oskar Swabowski 13. A Phoenix Rising: Journeys through childhood trauma Kirsty Lilley 14. Catching ‘Sliding Door’ Moments: Finding purpose in life, and Maintaining love, compassion and mental wellbeing Mats and Irene Niklasson 15. Building Resilience from Bad Experiences: An autoethnographic account Nawal Saleh 16. Locating and Decentering Professional Expertise as a Feminist Critical Psychologist in India Sonia Soans 17. Mental Health and the Body: An autoethnography of neuralgia, migraine, and insulin resistance Colette Szczepaniak 18. Spurious Emotional Understanding: What do ‘ordinary’ people know about entrapment in the bubbly, fizzing, ‘hung-before’ feeling? Siw Heidi Tonnessen 19. Dropping the Autoethnographic Seeds in the Soil Marianne Trent Index