From monologue to dialogue in mental health care research: reflections on a collaborative research process

Abstract

In today’s recovery-oriented mental health care practice and research, the perspectives of service users are considered of great importance. However, academic research into mental health care still mainly produces a scientific monologue in which the researcher (without lived experience) has the last word about the subject’s experiences. A fundamental question that remains underexposed in mental health care research is one of relational ethics: how can these monological dynamics be reshaped into a real dialogue between people with and without lived experience? The aim of the current paper is to reflect on the research process that we, an academic researcher and an expert by experience, have conducted in a co-creative way in order to draw a number of key lessons on dialogical research ethics.

Keywords:

• dialogical research
• epistemic violence
• bricolage
• experiential knowledge
• co-production

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Prof. Dr. Stijn Vandevelde and Prof. Dr. Stijn Vanheule for their support and valuable feedback during the writing process of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed by the Special Research Fund of Ghent University (Grant 01D33515).