“Hitting the wall”: Lived experiences of mental health crises

Abstract

Background : As Norway moves toward the provision of home-based crisis response, knowledge is needed about understandings of mental health crisis and effective ways of addressing crises within the home.

Objective : To elicit and learn from service users’ experiences about the subjective meanings of crisis and what kind of help will be most effective in resolving mental health crises.

Theoretical : A phenomenological-hermeneutic cooperative inquiry method was used to elicit and analyse focus group responses from mental health service users who had experienced crises.

Results : Findings clustered into three themes: (1) Crisis as multifaceted and varied experiences; (2) losing the skills and structure of everyday life; and (3) complexities involved in family support.

Conclusion : Several aspects of crises require an expansion of the biomedical model of acute intervention to include consideration of the personal and familial meaning of the crisis, attention to the home context, and activities of daily living that are disrupted by the crisis, and ways for the person and the family to share in and learn from resolution of the crisis.

• Acute mental health care
• service users
• experience-based knowledge
• mental health crisis

Acknowledgements

This article is a product stemming from the research project: Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment in Community Mental Health Service for which Dr. Hesook Suzie Kim is the project director and Drs. Marit Borg and Bengt Karlsson are the principal researchers. This project is funded by the Research Council of Norway from 2007 to 2011. We acknowledge the support and assistance provided by various staff members of Vestre Viken HF, The clinic for mental health and abuse, and the organizations of the users and careers of Buskerud, in carrying out this research project. We also acknowledge the support from “National Centre for experienced involvement in Mental Health.”