Abstract
This study investigates how clients’ emotions are invoked and reflected in client–worker interactions and themeanings they have regarding leaving home. We concentrate on floating support work, which aims to support people suffering from mental health and substance abuse‐related issues to improve their living in the community. Our theoretical framework is based on the geography of emotions, and we draw on both the interactional and relational approaches thereto. The research material is gathered from Finland and England. We draw on mobile ethnographic and discursive approaches, and our data consists of transcriptions and field notes gathered during floating support visits (N = 19) that took place either at or outside of a client’s home. Our findings demonstrate how the connections between places and emotions, the emotions connected to leaving one’s home, the emotions reflected while being out in the community, and the reflections of emotions after being out in the community are constructed and reflected in client–worker interactions. The study highlights that these emotions are a necessary and demanding part of promoting clients’ social inclusion in the context of floating support work.
Highlights
Recent decades have seen a transition in long‐term men‐ tal health and psychiatric services, which generally take place at community‐based rather than institution‐ based facilities (De Heer‐Wunderink et al, 2012, p. 1102)
We analysed the deeper meanings connected to these functions and how the thoughts of leaving one’s home or being on the move evoked a wide range of emotions, which were addressed in several ways in client–worker interac‐ tions. We focused on those parts of the data where emotions were talked into being and how these emo‐ tions were related to mobility and leaving one’s home to visit certain environments
We have shown how emotions are made visible in communicated actions (Koprowska & van Nijnatten, 2019) and in relation to the socio‐cultural contexts in which people operate daily (Gergen, 2009)
Summary
Recent decades have seen a transition in long‐term men‐ tal health and psychiatric services, which generally take place at community‐based rather than institution‐ based facilities (De Heer‐Wunderink et al, 2012, p. 1102). This development has been concep‐ tualised as ‘deinstitutionalisation’ (Fakhoury & Priebe, 2007) Another term, ‘home turn,’ outlines how insti‐ tutional services targeting people living at the margins of welfare have been replaced by offering support and services in their homes and communities (Hall et al, 2021). The goals of deinstitutionalisation and home turn policies and practices are to advance the active citizen‐ ship of people living at the margins of society, strengthen their self‐determination and autonomy, and emphasise their right to equal housing (Miettinen & Teittinen, 2014; Tideman & Tossebro, 2002) Another important goal is to enhance their social inclusion Spending a lot of time at home and being able to organise and man‐ age one’s home space has been shown to promote a sense of inclusion and feelings of control and social nor‐ malcy, as some places outside the home can cause fear, pressure, and anxiety (Tucker, 2010, pp. 444–447)
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