Comics and mental health recovery
The author's comic has played a decisive role in the legitimization of comics as a narrative medium, but it has also allowed the proliferation of a whole series of themes that belong to the everyday sphere. The almost infinite possibilities of comics to talk to us about the disease from perspectives as disparate as fiction, autobiography and clinical narrative have aroused the interest of a new generation of health professionals who consider that graphic narratives can provide, both people treated and professionals, a better understanding of the pathological phenomenon in all its dimensions. Works such as Psychiatric Tales by Darryl Cunningham, Yo, Loco by Antonio Altarriba and Keko or Desmesura by Fernando Balius and Mario Pellejer, are a clear example of the unique narrative mechanisms that comics use to approach us to the subjective experience of mental disorder .
This is because comics are capable of graphically representing, through resources such as visual metaphors, the inner suffering of people who have this type of disorder when it comes to offering us resolution mechanisms that facilitate identification and the emergence of hope, and work on identity; all of which are key factors in the mental health recovery process.
In 2019, an initiative in this area was carried out at the Sant Joan de Déu Health Park : the Comic and Recovery Group , which aimed to work on each of the stages of the recovery process through a specific comic. For this reason, a series of works were chosen that, due to their narrative and visual richness, facilitate reflection on each stage, both individually and collectively. On the other hand, the group aimed to facilitate the self-control, self-management and self-determination of its members, recognize the quality of "expert by their experience" of each of the members, increase the opportunities for a life beyond mental disorder and generate hope. The group's working philosophy resided in a set of values that are supported by the right of a person to build a meaningful life for themselves, with or without the presence of the symptoms of a mental disorder.
The target population to which the proposal was addressed were users of hospitalization units (subacute and acute day hospital) and mental health centers (CSM) and entities of people with their own experience who were interested in working from this methodology. The workshop would be offered through the coordinators of the CSM and the intranet of the Sant Joan de Déu Health Park, in order to reach people interested in working through this format. At most, in order to facilitate the work methodology, 8 people could participate per cycle (annual cycles of 3 months each were carried out, unfortunately the start of the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the repetition of the experience.
The methodology used consisted of reading and subsequent reflection on each of the chosen works. Each work served as a pretext to reflect on each of the stages of recovery : moratorium, awareness, preparation, reconstruction and growth (Andresen, Caputi and Oades, 2006). The works chosen were: Historias del Barrio by Gabi Beltrán, Los combates cotidianos by Manu Larcenet, Las calles de arena by Paco Roca, El Nao de Brown by Glyn Dillon and Desmesura by Fernando Balius and Mario Pellejer. Each comic was worked on in two sessions and twelve were made in total. In the first session, the presentation of the work and the contents to be worked on was made. In the second session, the contributions of each of the group members were collected and some scenes were pointed out by the group facilitators to help the group discussion and the identification of key elements. Each group session closed by presenting the "homework", which consisted of reading the work and identifying or defining elements of personal recovery.
The general objectives we set for each session were:
- Create a safe and supportive space, and a common language that allows sharing and understanding experiences related to mental health.
- Reflect on the recovery process and the factors that influence it.
- Verbalize experiences about recovery and share them with other members.
- Know where each person is in the recovery process.
- Identify personal work goals.
- Generate hope to be able to continue with therapeutic work.
During all the sessions, the following key elements were worked on:
- Hope is built in a shared way.
- Resilience . The protagonists of the works always succeed despite the context and circumstances. The aim is for the group to be able to identify these facilitating elements, highlighting support as one of the most important.
- Meaning and purpose: the experience of a meaningful life, based on each person's particular beliefs, values and circumstances, allows the construction of hope and facilitates recovery.
The results obtained were very satisfactory. There was an improvement in the scores of the recovery scales administered (STORI, Stages of Recovery Instrument by Andresen, Caputi and Oades, 2006; Andresen et al., 2003) and the opinions of the participants coincided in that the group had helped them to identify aspects of their personal recovery and to improve, in addition to having strengthened their capacity and desire to continue fighting with mental suffering and in their day to day lives. This enriching and satisfying experience, which we enjoyed together with the users of the workshop, means that the professionals who facilitated the group continue to bet on comics as a tool rich in possibilities, both for our professional intervention and for the training of future health professionals.
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