Cartography of freely-given relationships in mental health

Abstract

People diagnosed with serious mental illness experience a constrained and regulated participation in society, as their social networks are typically limited to only paid support workers and family. While research and practice in the mental health sector has focused primarily on providing services, this thesis explores a community-oriented alternative. Drawing on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, I explore how disruptive, relational processes might occur in the cramped spaces of the mental health sector.In partnership with a small community mental health organisation, this project explored freely-given/ally relationships (i.e., non-therapeutic, non-institutional, non-paid, and non-familial relationships) between people who have a diagnosis of serious mental illness and people in the community. Over a four-month period, I spent in-depth time with four pairs of people, getting to know them through conversation, observation, and social mapping. Understanding these relationships as a Deleuzio-Guattarian ally assemblage, I wanted to explore: What are these assemblages like? How do they assemble/disassemble? What do they do/produce? How do transformative processes unfold in ally assemblages (if at all)? Employing a postqualitative, cartographic approach, this thesis maps the composition and transformative processes of ally assemblages.I introduce a Deleuzio-Guattarian theoretical framework (Chapters 1 and 3) to interrogate the dominant mental health assemblages in the current literature (Chapter 2). I then outline this study’s ethnographic research methods (Chapter 4), including the data collection methods and theory-driven cartographic approach. Chapter 5 elaborates this cartographic approach and operationalises it through a performative re-presentation of a research interview.Subsequently, I discuss the results, beginning with an overview of the four ally assemblages in the project (Chapter 6). I traverse the territories (Chapter 7), becoming (Chapter 8), and desire (Chapter 9) of these assemblages, sketching the topography and social production of these relationships. Drawing from a range of Deleuzio-Guattarian “becomings” (becoming-minor, becoming-reactive, becoming-animal), I articulate a nuanced understanding of ally assemblages – how they assemble and disassemble, and how they transform.In Chapter 7, I sketch a cartography of the territories in ally assemblages, using the conceptualisation of active/reactive force relations and becoming-reactive. Reactive forces (e.g., people categorised with mental illness) can separate active forces (e.g., allies) from what they can do through a process of becoming-reactive, softening the territories of ally assemblages, and producing supple, non-dominating hierarchies.In Chapter 8, I sketch a cartography of becoming in ally assemblages. As anticipated, these relationships were characterised by reciprocity, but I also suggest that it is their aspects of non-reciprocity that had transformative power. The supple hierarchy of ally assemblages produces an affirmative (and collective) force of “careless generosity” and “care-full generosity.” Careless generosity is excessive, with disregard for convention and a lack of interest in payment or acknowledgement, whereas care-full generosity is full of intention, vigilantly working to bring benefit to another. These flows of generosity opened new possibilities in the lives of people categorised with serious mental illness.In Chapter 9, I explore generative/creative impulses of desire that produce affirmative forces in ally assemblages. Drawing from Deleuzio-Guattarian concepts of desiring-machines and desire, I consider how desire both constructs and is socially constructed in ally assemblages. I also explore how ally assemblages produce a particular form of Deleuzio-Guattarian desire, a desire for a people to come.I conclude by folding these maps into the scholarly landscape of befriending practices and allyship in mental health (Chapter 10). I outline how ally assemblages flow in an in-between space that is neither clearly allyship (as discussed in the literature) nor befriending practice (an approach used in mental health). In relation to emerging literature on accompliceship, I present the notion of allyship as an ongoing micropolitical process of becoming-complicit in ally assemblages, where allies move towards taking on someone else’s struggle.Through this thesis, I contribute a fresh understanding of allyship in mental health and open up possibilities for generating transformative lines of flight and liberating desires in the community mental health sector. In addition, I present a novel empirical application of Deleuzio-Guattarian philosophy and postqualitative scholarship in the field of mental health.