RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Vital spaces and mental health
JF Medical Humanities
JO J Med Humanit
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP 131
OP 140
DO 10.1136/medhum-2018-011609
VO 45
IS 2
A1 Steven D Brown
A1 Paula Reavey
YR 2019
UL http://mh.bmj.com/content/45/2/131.abstract
AB The impact of social and material conditions on mental health is well established but lacking in a coherent approach. We offer the concept of ‘vitality’ as means of describing how environments facilitate ‘feelings of being alive’ that cut across existing diagnostic categories. Drawing on the work of Stern, Fuchs, Worms and Duff, we argue that vitality is not solely a quality of an individual body, but rather emerges from attunements and resonances between bodies and materials. We use vitality as a lens to explore how movements within and between assembled sets of relations can facilitate or disable feelings and expressions of being alive. Building on extended discussions of both inpatient and community-based mental healthcare, we sketch out a research agenda for analysing ‘vital spaces’.