Spider in a Jar: Women Who Have Recovered From Psychosis and Their Experience of the Mental Health Care System

Abstract

A growing body of literature has documented considerable dissatisfaction with the mental health care system among people who use mental health services. This article adds to this literature by reporting on the results of qualitative interviews done with 18 women who had recovered from some form of transformative psychotic experience and were willing to share their experiences with the mental health care system. The participants unanimously felt that their experiences with the mental health system were very negative and detrimental to their overall healing and recovery process. Four main themes emerged from the qualitative analysis of the interview transcripts: (1) “the label factory,” which described the capricious and destructive nature of the psychiatric diagnoses they received; (2) “invalidated and unheard,” which described how little the women’s voices seemed to matter to the mental health care professionals caring for them; (3) “violence and violations,” which described the loss of free will and dignity the women experienced during inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations; and (4) “smashing the jar,” which described the hopes and dreams these women had for changing the way people receive mental health care. The implications of these findings for mental health practice are discussed.