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Connecting narrative with mental health learning through discussion and analysis of selected contemporary films
Author(s) -
McAllister Margaret
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of mental health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.911
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1447-0349
pISSN - 1445-8330
DOI - 10.1111/inm.12134
Subject(s) - narrative , transformative learning , curriculum , mental health , psychology , nurse education , pedagogy , memoir , sociology , medical education , medicine , psychotherapist , art , literature
In a recently completed qualitative study of nursing leaders' views of requirements for practice, seven aspects of recovery practice were revealed as central for graduates to learn. It is challenging to provide an in‐depth understanding of recovery in a nursing curriculum because there are so many competing content areas and, as a result, time is constrained. However, because it is so vital to understand, educators would benefit from developing and sharing teaching strategies that explore recovery deeply, memorably, and engagingly, in order to encourage theory to be put into practice. Recent research into narrative pedagogy suggests that better use of stories, especially those that have strong emotional pull, such as well‐made films and memoirs, may offer solutions to creative educators. Stories can have transformative potential, because once heard and heeded, the person can never go back to exactly how they were before. Recovery learned in this way becomes a threshold concept for the mental health curriculum. This paper outlines an engaging and time‐efficient teaching strategy to develop these skills, drawing on the concept of narrative pedagogy.