10.00
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15.00
Drammen, Auditorium A5508 and Zoom
Siw Tønnessen is defending her dissertation for the degree philosophiae doctor (PhD) at the University of South-Eastern Norway.
The doctoral work has been carried out at the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences.
You are invited to follow the trial lecture and the public defence:
Summary
Meaningfulness in everyday life is important for people in recovery from mental health and/or substance use challenges, but what constitutes a meaningful everyday life depends on who you ask. The answer you get depends on the perspective, focus, and position of the person answering.
The thesis has a social constructionist research design, and the research was carried out together with staff and residents of a supported housing facility for people with mental health and/or substance use challenges and together with a competence group. Data was constructed using focus group interviews, photovoice and autoethnography, and data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis and double hermeneutics, participant-driven analysis and analytical autoethnography.
The findings of the thesis show that what professionals believe contributes to meaning in everyday life for people in recovery may be something different from what the people themselves experience as meaningful. This is valuable knowledge that implies a willingness to explore what the individual experience as recovery promoting. It also implies exploring the individual's own resources, because people in recovery live with themselves even when the professionals are not at work.
The findings show that professionals also need a meaningful everyday life, and that their working day can be a source of such meaning. The thesis requires a focus on justifications for practice; is it for example the service users, the professional's or the services' need for meaning that underlies the way practice is done.