Disruption: Using Participatory, Collective, and Creative Research Processes to Challenge Psy-coercion in Women’s Lives

This chapter discusses a feminist research study, exploring women’s experiences of involuntary mental health treatment. In-depth interviews, participatory action research, arts-based research practices, and public sociology proved valuable in contesting biomedical discourses and carceral logics in mental health. Processes including collective conversations, alongside thematic and creative analysis, enabled us to explore alternative understandings and responses to distress and difference, beyond the assumptions of mainstream mental health service provision. We discuss the important challenge of moving beyond a mechanistic or superficial approach to ‘co-design’, in order to embed participatory processes and to centre survivor knowledges throughout the life of a research study.