Exploring the educative potential of eating disorder memoirs

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential benefits that books, and specifically memoirs, may offer mental health students, positing that first person testimonials may make the complex experiences of a mental health challenge, in this case eating disorders (ED), accessible to learners.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents a pedagogical approach, based on transformative learning (TL), to assist in encouraging the development of a Recovery Approach in students. TL is a pedagogy that is interested in problematic practices that keep afflicting an area such as mental health, such as the imbalanced focus on learning illness rather than wellbeing, and in pondering and revising the educational solutions.

Findings

The paper proposes that forward movement in this area will be based on considering and developing such innovative curricula, and researching its impact.

Originality/value

By virtue of their accessibility, memoirs could offer to a large audience the benefits of universality, empathy, hope and guidance. Teachers and learners could be making use of these books in face-to-face or online activities. This paper explores the groundwork that is needed before ED memoirs can be confidently recommended as an empowering tool.

Citation

McAllister, M., Lee Brien, D., Alexander, J. and Flynn, T. (2014), "Exploring the educative potential of eating disorder memoirs", The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 69-78. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMHTEP-07-2013-0026