Co-Developing a Radical Mental Health Doula Model of Support

Abstract

Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) has the potential to create impactful research outcomes, challenge institutional hierarchies and disrupt conditions that oppress and marginalize women in the research process. This paper reflects on the application of FPAR as a methodology during the development of an innovative Radical Mental Health Doula (RMHD) framework and the accompanying training curriculum. Women and their experiences with mental health systems and services are at the centre of this project. Experts through their own experience, women co-researchers (WCRs) were instrumental in identifying problems and determining how to address gaps in what they recognized as an often cruel, fragmented and dehumanizing model of mental health care. The FPAR approach allowed us to question the roles of expert, researcher and subject. This enabled an exploration of how women’s voices and experience, which are traditionally silenced, can challenge hierarchical and patriarchal practices in mental health systems and research. Reflecting on the use of FPAR, through an analysis of data from consultation meetings with WCRs, we identified three key practices that led to the successful application of this methodology in the RMHD project. In this paper we highlight the voices of women co-researchers to examine 1. Relationship building, 2. Inquiry with women co-researchers and respect for lived experience, and 3. Holding space to share vulnerability and emotion in the FPAR process.