Ambivalence in accounts of involuntary hospitalisation

The price of ‘safety’? Ambivalence in mental health service user interview accounts of involuntary hospitalisation (‘sectioning’) in England

SRN director, Dr Dina Poursanidou, delivered a joint presentation about this research which she worked on  with University of Central Lancashire. This was at the 13th Annual Critical Perspectives in Mental health Conference on 10 November 2021. The overall title for the conference was ‘Creating Safe Spaces in Mental Health Systems: Critical Perspectives“.

The presentation covered the following questions:

• “How do mental health service users in England talk about their experiences of involuntary hospitalisation (‘sectioning’)?
• Why is it critically important/essential to listen to/value ambivalent service user/survivor voices when it comes to psychiatric detention?
• What does an ambivalent stance towards psychiatric detention entail?
• How do our findings relate to the current policy context in England?
• My own experience of sectioning – The difficulty of maintaining ambivalence”

You can listen to the presentations on the conference website, here.