Narrative policy in participatory research-intervention

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the narrative policy in participatory research-intervention related to Gaining Autonomy & Medication Management (GAM). Listening and legitimizing the experience of users of mental health services is a key point for GAM, as well as for participatory researchintervention. The appreciation of the research participants’ experience unfolds in the problem of narratives as a medium of access and inclusion of the experience. This article is based on two research projects already completed, carried out in Psychosocial Care Centers of inland cities of the state of Rio de Janeiro. We talk about narrativity policy as the production of narratives evidences the necessary legitimation of commonly excluded points of view. Such policy concerns, on the one hand, the operation of intervention groups with users, workers and researchers as spaces for sharing experiences and discussing about medication. On the other hand, it concerns the translation of this dialogue in the form of written texts, related to the research register (memories) and to the restitution of the knowledge produced in narrative groups, in which the participants are called to produce knowledge in co-authorship. We highlight that there is a narrative policy of GAM characterized by mobilizing and sustaining a dialogue based on the alterity of the experience.