Larkin, Michael, McCabe, Rose, Bortolotti, Lisa, Broome, Matthew, Craythorne, Shioma-Lei, Temple, Rachel, Lim, Michele, Fadashe, Catherine, Sims, Chris, Sharples, Oscar and Cottrell, Josh (2024). Being Understood: Epistemic Injustice Towards Young People Seeking Support for Their Mental Health. IN: Epistemic Justice in Mental Healthcare. Bortolotti, Lisa (ed.) Palgrave Macmillan.
Abstract
Across many domains, it is important for us to feel that we are understood by others. This is crucial when we are disclosing a vulnerability or seeking help for a problem. When these disclosures or helpseeking requests relate to mental health difficulties, our interactions with others can carry many threats, including stigmatisation; inappropriate moral or character judgements; overly stringent threshold evaluations; and assumptions about our personal circumstances and social resources. In this chapter, we summarise some of the core findings from empirical and qualitative studies which examine what happens when young people meet with health professionals to disclose or to seek help for their experiences with poor mental health. We then draw out some key implications for improving relational and communicative practices amongst mental health professionals. We focus on those implications which are highlighted by those members of our team who are young adults with experiences of accessing mental health services and reflect on these implications in the light of insights from the literature on epistemic injustice.
Publication DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-68881-2_1 |
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Divisions: | College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Institute of Health & Neurodevelopment (AIHN) Aston University (General) |
Additional Information: | Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | Agency,Clinical encounters,Felt understanding,Mental health,Youth,General Medicine,General Psychology,General Social Sciences,General Nursing,General Health Professions |
ISBN: | 9783031688805 (hbk), 9783031688812 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jun 2025 07:05 |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jun 2025 12:03 |
Full Text Link: | |
Related URLs: |
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK
(Scopus URL) https://link.sp ... 3-031-68881-2_1 (Publisher URL) |
PURE Output Type: | Chapter |
Published Date: | 2024-11-17 |
Authors: |
Larkin, Michael
(![]() McCabe, Rose Bortolotti, Lisa Broome, Matthew Craythorne, Shioma-Lei ( ![]() Temple, Rachel Lim, Michele Fadashe, Catherine Sims, Chris Sharples, Oscar Cottrell, Josh |