The loneliness of the long-anxious learner: mental illness, narrative biography and learning to write

Abstract

This paper reports on selected findings of a 3-year research study which explored mentally ill adults' experience of attending a basic literacy/expressive writing course in a community mental health setting. It focuses on the theme of loneliness as experienced by participants as an inescapable part of their learning, writing and engagement with biographic material. One case study in particular is selected to illustrate points raised. Biographic narrative interviews were used throughout the study to explore ways in which the experience of learning and writing were impacting on a sense of identity. Although the substantive focus of the analysis was the interview data, this paper describes how a broader ethnographic approach was used to gain observational data and to explore the writing itself in order to build a richer picture of the individuals in the group. The paper focuses on a theme that emerged in various ways from the data as a whole; that of loneliness. Using the ideas of Melanie Klein to explore the links between learning, loneliness and reparation, the journey of one participant is described in detail. The research suggests that loneliness may be an integral part of being able to learn and build a new identity – and that the reparation ushered in by an engagement with biographic material may be part of this process. This elaborate and lengthy process, however, is particularly fraught in learners with mental health difficulties and painful histories; the paper also, therefore, outlines the shortcomings of current adult and community educational policy.