TITLE:
Experiences on Participation in Literary Activities: Intellectual Stimuli Empower People with Mental Health Problems
AUTHORS:
Lisbeth Kristiansen, Ulrika Lif, Helen Asklund
KEYWORDS:
Alternative Interventions, Literary Activities, Mental Health Promotion, Multidisciplinary Care, Qualitative Methodology, User Involvement
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Nursing,
Vol.7 No.11,
November
23,
2017
ABSTRACT: Some research acknowledges engagement in creative
and literary activities as constructively impacting rehabilitation and
recovery. Nevertheless, there is a deficit of literature describing experiences
of participation in literary activities. This study examined how members of a
non-profit association for mental health, with experiences of mental problems
or illnesses, experienced group-based literary activities facilitated of a
bi-disciplinary research team during one semester. This study held a constructive/naturalistic
design and used a qualitative methodology with a latent analysis to describe how
participants experienced literary activities (creative writing, reading and
conversations about published and own written poetry and prose texts). Both
individual and focus-group interviews were performed early 2014. Despite
previous negative experiences, the findings showed that the participants
perceived the literary activities empowering. Four categories were created:
Presumptions of personal literacy, leadership role, participants’ role, and literacy
development. These were abstracted and interpreted into three themes: Identifying a reading and writing self-image, challenging and redefining one’s reading and writing identity, and strengthening one’s intellectual and humanistic capacity. Literary activities seemed
to positively change the participants’ attitudes towards writing and reading,
and also enhanced their literacy skills. We argue that literacy skills are
interconnected with health literacy. Involvement of literary activities into
rehabilitation in mental health practice may be beneficial for some groups, and
merits further studies.