title: Mental distress: strategies of sense-making.
abstract: The irruption of severe mental distress into the life of an individual determines a deep biographical disruption. To cope with this crisis, individuals are involved in a laborious sense-making activity, through the composition of narratives intended to create a new link between past, present and future. This essay analyses the sense-making strategies that follow this dramatic experience through the comparison of four illness narratives composed by Italian participants. The narratives are selected from a broader textual corpus in a way that authorizes their connotation as 'flesh and blood' ideal types. These narratives illustrate three kinds of explanation for the outset of mental distress: the biomedical adopted by Vito; the spiritual-religious adopted by Marta; and the psycho-social adopted by Giacomo. Vito, Marta and Giacomo are still inside the story they are telling, and compose the events by observing them through the eyes of a patient, qualifying their diversity as a stigma. The fourth narrative is different, composed by Serena, a 'voices hearer' who comes to terms with her voices not by silencing them with drugs, but by accepting them as a charisma that has transformed her into a medium and, on final analysis, a balanced woman.
authors.affiliation: University of Turin, Italy. mario.cardano@unito.it
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cardano
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012647:Self-Assessment; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*