Joint Decision Making in Mental Health

This volume studies joint decision making in mental health care contexts through an in-depth examination of the negotiations of power and authority at the level of turn-by-turn sequential unfolding of interaction. Bringing together research at the intersection of mental health, discourse and conversation analysis it examines a wide range of settings including chronic psychiatric visits, rehabilitation meetings, occupational therapy encounters and cognitive behavioral therapy appointments. It presents a series of studies which reveal in close detail the joint decision-making processes in these critical encounters by using naturally occurring video-recorded interactions from a range of health service settings as data. In so doing, it sheds light on the interactional practices of health care workers that may facilitate or discourage client participation in joint decision-making processes. The book will provide important insights for academics and practitioners working in the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, applied linguistics, nursing, social work and rehabilitation; and in particular for those specializing in psychiatry and mental health.

Camilla Lindholm is Professor of Nordic languages at Tampere University, Finland. Professor Lindholm’s main research areas are interaction in institutional settings and linguistically asymmetric interaction. Her methodological approaches are conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, and she takes an interest in applying her research findings and creating a dialogue with society.Melisa Stevanovic is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Dr. Stevanovic has conducted a long series of studies on collaborative decision-making in both naturally occurring interactions and experimental settings. She has also published on the topic of interactional deficits and experiences of interaction, specifically in the context of autism spectrum disorders.Elina Weiste is Researcher at The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland. Dr. Weiste has a background as an occupational therapist in psychiatric rehabilitation and has extensive knowledge of individuals with mental illness and their training in social skills. She earned her PhD on therapeutic interaction and has vast experience in training clinical professionals.