Holding duality in mental health research and practice
Towards the meaningful integration of dual-positioned researchers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15295167 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Francis Hunt (0000-0002-8802-7368, University of Exeter, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-26 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Public Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0958-1596 • E-ISSN: 1469-3682 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09581596.2026.2619251 |
| OpenAlex | W7125741700 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
This Article examines the epistemic tensions experienced by researchers who occupy both professional academic roles and lived mental health experience—”dual-positioned researchers” (DPRs)—within institutional research settings and some of the similar and unique challenges they face compared to lived experience researchers. It frames the argument as epistemic silencing viewed through multiple levels: interpersonal silencing, systemic silencing, cultural silencing, and intrapersonal silencing. It argues that declarations of inclusion may conceal structural discomfort when DPRs disclose lived and learned experience. This relational exclusions constrain the potential of lived experience to drive research innovation. The Article calls for an ethics of relational holding in research cultures, where inclusion is substantively hosted, and offers suggestions for how this may be operationalised. It is timely for mental health scholarship grappling with power, legitimacy, and epistemic pluralism in innovation
Argument (complex analysis · Face (sociological concept · Inclusion (mineral · Interpersonal communication · Intrapersonal communication · Lived experience · Mental health · Pluralism (philosophy · Scholarship · Health Policy Implementation Science · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
Phenomenology of Illness
Practicing participatory action research.
Epistemic injustice in the therapeutic relationship in psychiatry
Epistemic injustice in healthcare
Epistemic Injustice and Illness
Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory
Public Participation in Health and Social Care
Toward Epistemic Justice
Drawing straight lines along blurred boundaries
I call it the hero complex’ – Critical considerations of power and privilege and seeking to be an agent of change in qualitative researchers’ experiences
Enhancing benefits for peer researchers
Uncovering the emotional labour of involvement and co-production in mental health research
Who gets to study whom
Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice
The Politics of 'people with lived experience' Experiential Authority and the Risks of Strategic Essentialism
Patient and Public Involvement in the Coproduction of Knowledge
Material and epistemic precarity
Vicarious experiences of major discrimination, anxiety symptoms, and mental health care utilization among Black Adults
Patient and public involvement in health research
The emotional labour of peer work
Disconnections and exclusions
Identity and power in co-produced activist research
| Highly cited | No |
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