McPin’s Talking Point series offers deeper dives into our project work. The latest, authored by survivor research Alison Faulkner, looks at SUN RISE and is available to read now.
The collaboration between McPin, Alison Faulkner and Durham University, the SUN RISE project explored how research into subjective experiences of depression, anxiety and psychosis is conducted and valued globally within mental health research.
This new paper spotlights the challenges to conducting research into subjective experiences that were initially surfaced in the project’s summary report. There will also be a paper coming soon exploring the facilitators to this work. It draws on the conversations the project team had with 25 people from across academic and clinical institutions, research organisations, and with lived experience – plus any intersectional combination of those roles.
Taking a multidisciplinary approach, these conversations included researchers from psychiatry, psychology, social care and humanities, and some survivor (lived experience) researchers, plus journal editors and funders.
In this paper, Alison identifies an early project stumbling blocks – the term ‘subjective experiences’ itself. The paper goes on to break down the methodological challenges, surfaces interviewees attitudes to the medical model, current systems and structures, and more. With a look to the future, the SUN RISE team also asked those interviewed what needs to change for studies of subjective experiences to be better integrated into mental health research.
Read Talking Points 4: The barriers to researching subjective experiences in mental health.
The SUN RISE project was commissioned by Wellcome.
