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Mental health and identity: the evaluation of a drop‐in centre
Author(s) -
Hall Sarah,
Cheston Richard
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of community and applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1099-1298
pISSN - 1052-9284
DOI - 10.1002/casp.639
Subject(s) - mental health , empowerment , social identity theory , mental illness , social psychology , psychology , grounded theory , sociology , stigma (botany) , identity (music) , context (archaeology) , drop out , social group , psychotherapist , social science , psychiatry , qualitative research , political science , demographic economics , paleontology , physics , acoustics , economics , law , biology
This paper is based on interviews with users of a drop‐in centre run by a voluntary group. Using a grounded theory approach the paper argues that individuals' use of the drop‐in is linked to the discursive strategies that they have developed to cope with stigma. Tajfel's Social Identity Theory is employed as a framework to examine how users manage the threat to their identity posed by the diagnosis and experience of mental illness. The implications of this research are examined within the context of the empowerment paradigm of mental health. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.