Exploring multiple efficacies through sensory relatedness at Restore, an Oxfordshire mental health charity

Thesis

This thesis responds to the demand for an anthropological evaluation of the service at Restore. It is an exploration of the multiple efficacies in this community mental health charity. Empirically, I work with archival materials about the hospital and community spaces where Restore was incubated and founded. I also present ethnographic accounts of the gardening, craftwork, and catering work at Restore’s three recovery groups in Oxford and Banbury. I use a diversity of research methods to study these empirical materials, including participant learning and experience, visual archives analysis, spoken discourse analysis, photo-elicitation and semi-structured interviews.

Guided by the approach of Sensory Medical Anthropology, I emphasise the therapeutic efficacies generated through the restoration of the body’s orientation to others, a problem identifiable from the lived experiences of mental illness. I propose that the gardening, craftwork, and catering work at Restore’s recovery groups are intrinsically intercorporeal, and the processes for members (service users) to learn the body techniques and collaborate in groups cultivate vital and productive relations.

Moreover, the transmission of body techniques and the collaboration in groups cultivate care, which enables many members to transit into volunteering roles within Restore. Many members become empotted and emplaced as skilful workers for Restore’s shops and cafes that cater for the local community. Providing the multiple trajectories for a service member to become ‘better’ at Restore, the Oxfordshire Mental Health Parnership (OMHP)’s monitor of the ‘discharges’ of service users into paid employment, which is the most valued outcome that directly informs the statutory funding for Restore, needs to be re-considered. The definition of ‘moving on’ within the charity could also include more diverse possibilities to enable creative and long-term recoveries.

Authors: Peng, Y

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-mpokeo988
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: medical anthropology; multiple efficacies; treatment evaluation; sensory relatedness; community mental health
• Subjects: medical anthropology