Voices of Experience: Narratives of Mental Health Survivors

Voices of Experience contains a wide variety of stories and narratives written by mental health survivors. These stories explore the way in which the survivors have discovered, recovered, coped, grown, and thrived through their experience of living with mental health problems. Many have developed their own self-management techniques and strategies for living. All have found ways to combat the stigma and discrimination. The narratives emphasise the importance of peer support and self-help, but the book challenges simplistic explanations of recovery and offers a critical angle to our understanding of what it means to experience mental health problems.

The skills and knowledge of the contributors offer a guide to anybody who may be struggling with 21^st century life; they illustrate that those who have battled with the complexities of existence, and found their own unique ways of surviving, learning and moving on, can teach us all a great deal about how to live in our modern world.

The editors reinforce the importance of storytelling in understanding a person’s experience of mental health problems. They also offer guidance for mental health workers and professionals within the context of current mental health policies in the UK.