[Making meaning of mental distress; discourse analysis of service-users' narratives].

Background: Processes of meaning-making are central to personal recovery in mental distress. Scientific inquiry of meaning-making is scarce within psychiatry, while it has the potential to better attune care to the lived-experience and views of service-users.
Aim: <span class="CharOverride-2">To gain insight into how service-users make meaning of mental distress; how this meaning is shaped by mental health discourses, and how these discourses influence the search for identity and recovery. </span> METHODS: <span class="CharOverride-2">Qualitative study of service-users&rsquo; narratives (N = 25) from the Psychiatry Story Bank. Narratives were collected through an open interview and analyzed with discourse analysis.</span> RESULTS: <span class="CharOverride-2">We identified four patterns of meaning: Mental distress as &lsquo;weakness&rsquo;, as &lsquo;social isolation&rsquo;, as &lsquo;necessity for care&rsquo; and as &lsquo;disconnection&rsquo;. </span>Disposal - and integration - of<span class="CharOverride-2"> various discourses apparently helped participants to find meaning, attuned to their recovery phase and the particular recognition they pursued. The quest for recovery was complicated when they experienced a clash between their own meaning-making and dominant ideals in care.</span> CONCLUSION: Caretakers can stimulate the creation of helpful meaning, by attuning to their patients&rsquo; context, recovery phase and plea for recognition. Awareness of the effects and limitations of their own assumptions on mental distress is of importance as well.