A return to ordinariness

This article reports on the experiences of a group of five undergraduate theatre students working alongside people who use mental health services. Our aim was to study any changes in students’ attitudes over the period when they were making theatre with people with mental health problems. At first students were keen to define ‘mental illness’ and to draw clear lines between people who had or did not have mental health problems. They were likely to notice differences and attribute these to mental illness and they were keen to understand how they could help people through theatre. The most striking consequence of students’ contact was a change from regarding people who use mental health services as ontologically different, highly vulnerable and in need of special care and treatment to engaging with them as theatre makers and learners: a relationship and a purpose far more familiar to students. We have called this ‘a return to ordinariness’

Medical education · Mental health · Mental health service · Mental illness · Notice · Political science · Psychiatry · Art Therapy and Mental Health · Empathy and Medical Education · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Theatre and Performance Studies

• Actor–doctor partnership for theatre-based public health education

  Open Access•Kartik Sharma, Shivani Mathur Gaiha et al.•Health Education Journal•2021

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