Recovery stories

An anthropological exploration of moral agency in stories of mental health recovery

Datos Bibliográficos

ID15086007
AutoresN Myers (0000-0002-2206-6161, Southern Methodist University, autor de correspondencia), Neely Anne Laurenzo Myers (Southern Methodist University)
Año2016
Volumen53
Número4
Páginas427-444
Fecha de publicación2016-08-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaTranscultural Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1363-4615 • E-ISSN: 1461-7471
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1363461516663124
PMID27578861
OpenAlexW2508049656
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas38
Referencias citadas57

Moral agency has been loosely defined as the freedom to aspire to a “good life” that makes possible intimate relationships with others. This article uses ethnographic research to further the discussion of the role of moral agency in mental health recovery. This article attends to the ebb and flow of moral agency in the life stories of three people diagnosed with a serious psychiatric disability at different stages in their individual recoveries to illustrate particular aspects of moral agency relevant for recovery. From these, a more complex notion of moral agency emerges as the freedom not only to aspire to a “good life,” but also to achieve a “good” life through having both the intention to aspire and access to resources that help bring one’s life plans to fruition. Each storyteller describes an initial Aristotelian peripeteia, or “breach” of life plan, followed by an erosion of moral agency and sense of connection to others. The stories then diverge: some have the resources needed to preserve moral agency, and others attempt to replenish moral agency that has been eroded. In these stories, the resources for preserving and nourishing moral agency include the ability to cultivate the social bases of self-respect, autobiographical power, and peopled opportunities. These stories cumulatively suggest that without such resources one’s attempts to preserve or nourish the moral agency needed for recovery after the peripeteia, which is often perpetuated by the onset and experience of serious mental illness, may fall short

Art · Literature · Lived experience · Mental health · Narrative · Psychoanalysis · Psychotherapist · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Homelessness and Social Issues · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Work Education and Practice