The Lived Experience in Mental Health

This text highlights individuals' own lived and felt experience, in order to share expertise about mental health problems. Looking at five common mental health states - anxiety, depression, mood extremes, states of altered reality and impaired cognition - the book also addresses the experience of care offered by health and social services and the impact of other people's responses. Drawing on personal narratives from a range of sources, this text foregrounds the voices of experts by experience, relates those voices to the academic literature and emphasises the importance of person-centred care and participation by services users in their own care.