Empirical Study Abstract - Background: Against a tradition that has given preference to the ‘expert’ view of practitioners, a growing number of former service users have campaigned for mental health services to restore personal meaning to their mental health. Open Dialogue is an approach to mental health services that facilitates shared meaning-making among service users and professionals. Aims: This study investigated how individuals currently engaged in an Open Dialogue informed mental health clinic in Ireland made sense of their mental health. Method: Six individual semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: Two superordinate themes and related subthemes are discussed: ‘The Context of Meaning-Making: Relationships and Conversations’ and ‘New Meanings’. Conclusions: The participants provided evocative accounts of meaning-making within an OD informed mental health service, drawing from experiences of non-dialogical services to make valuable comparisons. The narratives provide evidence to support OD as a humanising approach to mental health services, which facilitates, rather than imposes meaning, and may lead to relational and individualised narratives that reduce self-blame.
Open dialogue, Qualitative, Meaning-making
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