Storying the world: a posthumanist critique of phenomenological‐humanist representational practices in mental health nurse qualitative inquiry |
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Authors: | Alec J. Grant BA MA PhD Cert Res Meth PGCTLHE RMN ENBCert |
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Affiliation: | School of Health Sciences, University of Brighton, Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK |
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Abstract: | The purpose of this study was to build on my previously published critique of phenomenological‐humanist representational practices in mental health nursing qualitative inquiry. I will unpack and trouble these practices from an explicitly posthumanist philosophical position on the basis of seminal posthumanist texts and my own single‐ and co‐authored work. My argument will be that researchers in mental health nurse qualitative inquiry, who display a phenomenological‐humanist narrative bent in their writing, continually endorse the validity of the institutional psychiatric assumptions, practices, and ways of representing human psychological distress. These are all explicitly rejected in more critical forms of qualitative inquiry in mental health, including in my own work. I will conclude that the use of phenomenological‐humanist representational practices, in mental health nursing and by implication and extension other healthcare disciplines, is unethical, un‐empathic, and morally compromised. This is because such practices present accounts of the worlds of mental health service users, survivors, and carers that lack necessary and sufficient levels of criticality and context. |
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Keywords: | narrative ethics mental health nursing phenomenology qualitative research narrative |
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