Survivor research in Canada: ‘talking’ recovery, resisting psychiatry, and reclaiming madness

Abstract

Beginning with discussion of what constitutes survivor research in Canada, this paper presents the findings of a critical discourse analysis of published accounts of survivor research over the last twenty-five years. Though they are varied, these texts demonstrate a rhetorical shift from a focus on the individual mind/body out to the social world experienced by psychiatric consumer/survivors. Findings indicate that survivor research engages with recovery discourse in numerous, sometimes problematic ways, in order to push back against dominant biomedical and psychiatric discourses. Further, new language is being generated for understanding madness and distress, rooted in a survivor perspective.

Keywords:

• Survivor research
• user-led research
• critical discourse analysis
• mad studies

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the generous financial support I have received from the St. George’s Society of Toronto through their endowment of graduate student awards. I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Eric Mykhalovskiy, for his patience, guidance and enthusiasm, which are greatly appreciated. I want to thank Kathryn Church and David Reville for laying the policy groundwork for consumer/survivor involvement in Canada and for piquing my interest in exploring how far this involvement has come. It’s only through their encouragement and support that I have been able to pursue my studies. I am particularly grateful for the incredible mentorship, knowledge sharing, and friendship I’ve experienced from members of the mad community in Toronto. Ours is small but mighty. Thank you especially to those bad mad women – for their fierce leadership, humour, and compassion when it’s needed most.

Notes

1. Under ‘Case selection’ I describe the process by which I conducted a review of the literature that led me to recognize this gap. This was further confirmed by Dr. Kathryn Church, an authority in user involvement in Canada (personal communication 2016). Additionally, a new project entitled the ‘User/Survivor Research Networks in Canada: Feasibility Study’ recently noted that survivor research in Canada ‘is yet to be comprehensively explored.’ (See: http://www.socialinequities.ca/research/mental-health-reform/projects/).

2. Survivor-controlled indicates full control of the entire project at every stage, whereas with survivor-led research, it is not expected that all roles on the research team must be filled by consumer/survivors. Rather, all researcher partners (survivors or not) remain self-reflexive and committed to making their skills and resources available to a project that takes up a psychiatric survivor analysis.

3. Grey literature generally refers to documents produced by sources (academic, government, community based, etc.) whose main task is not commercial publishing. Grey literature has not been peer-reviewed prior to publication.

4. Survivors contributing to the INFORM study volunteered their time for six years, indicating a strong commitment to the project (Taylor, Abbott, and Hardy 2012).

5. See, for instance: Faulkner and Layzell 2000; Habitat Services and the Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses 2010; Morrow and Chappell 1999; O’Hagan et al. 2010; Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses 2009.

6. For instance: Mental Health “Recovery” Study Working Group 2009; Morrow and Chappell 1999; Russo and Rose 2013; Shimrat 2002.