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The purpose of this paper is to compare the stories of Syd Barrett musician, with Andrew Voyce, and their respective recovery journeys.

The authors use collaborative autoethnography to share their own perspectives on Syd Barrett and to contrast his story with that of Andrew, a co-author.

Both Syd and Andrew experienced serious mental distress. While Syd had only limited contact with mental health services, Andrew’s contact was extensive, with a 20-year history of admissions and discharges. In the end, when the psychiatric services listened to Andrew’s concerns and acted on them, he was able to enter into the journey of recovery.

The authors are restricted in the amount of available information on Syd Barrett, especially that related to mental health problems. The story of Andrew shows how recovery is possible even after years of serious mental illness.

Andrew’s story shows why professionals should never give up on people, with even the most seemingly severe and intractable problems. Could services have done more for Syd?

Mental illness still attracts huge stigma. Today there is a much more open culture. Would Syd have come out about his own struggles with mental health had society been more open?

Bringing together two stories of mental distress enables the authors to explore the concept of recovery.

The main aim of this paper is to provide a living tribute of lived expert by experience and researcher Andrew Voyce.

Andrew provided the author with a list of names of people he might approach to write a tribute on his behalf.

The accounts describe the influence that Andrew has had both as an educator and as a trusted colleague for the people approached.

In many ways, the voices of people with mental health problems have been marginalised. Few mental health journals, with only some exceptions, encourage lived experience contributions.

The mental health agenda continues to be dominated by professional groups. The remarkable individuals who continually battle with serious mental illness are often lost in official discourses.

Despite the fact that the topic of mental health is now much more in the public domain, research tells us that the most effective anti-stigma strategy is contact with sufferers.

The archivist Dr Anna Sexton co-produced one of the few mental health archives that only featured people with lived experience. Andrew was one of the four people featured in it. This account “showcases” the work of this remarkable man.

The purpose of this study is to mirror the late guitarist Peter Green’s life experiences through insights from Andrew Voyce, who recovered from mental illness, and expertise from Peter Bryngelsson, a Swedish professional musician and author.

The authors used a mixed method of collaborative autoethnography, psychobiography and digital team ethnography.

Despite having not previously attracted academic interest, Peter Green’s experiences of mental health problems and his return to recording and performance provide a rich data source when mirrored and compared to the lives and experiences of Andrew Voyce and Peter Bryngelsson.

The main limitation of this piece of work is that Peter Green died in 2020. During the process of writing, the authors have had to follow different, mostly unacademic, sources that have described various parts of Peter Green’s life. The authors have given examples and drawn conclusions from their own lives as well as from academic sources, which they have found appropriate.

Both Andrew Voyce and Peter Bryngelsson’s stories would be helpful when it comes to a deeper understanding as to why Peter Green “took a left turn”, i.e., turned his back on an accepted lifestyle.

Acid casualty is a problem connected to both mental distress and to the music industry. Peter Bryngelsson’s story tells us that one can remain sane and drug free and still be an influential and creative musician.

The analysis has brought together two stories of mental distress in combination with insights.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an autoethnographic account of the stories of a mental health professional and a mental health survivor.

Using the autoethnographic approach, the authors provide summaries of their respective psychiatric careers in three parts.

The authors studied at the same University, Reading. Voyce failed his Politics finals and embarked on a trajectory as a mental patient. Carson graduated in Psychology and trained as a clinical psychologist. The recovery movement brought them together, and they have now established an educational and personal bond.

These are of course only two accounts, yet both authors have played a role in developing the recovery model in Britain. The accounts and story show the benefits of adopting a partnership approach between professional and service user.

Both accounts are recovery journeys in their own way. Both highlight the value of education for recovery.

There is no doubt that clinical psychologists are both highly valued and well paid for their expertise. However, the expertise gained through Andrew’s life experience is equally invaluable for today’s mental health professionals to learn from, but perhaps not as well remunerated.

Both accounts stretch back over 45 years and have covered the move from institutional to community care. This paper presents two contrasting perspectives on these changes and the lives of the two people involved.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the life of the musician Brian Wilson from five different perspectives.

The authors used a mixed method of collaborative autoethnography, psychobiography and digital team ethnography to try and better understand the life and contributions of Brian Wilson.

Each of the five contributors provides different insights into the life and music of Brian Wilson.

While the focus of this paper is on a single individual, a case study, the long and distinguished life of Brian Wilson provides much material for discussion and theorising.

Each individual presenting to mental health services has a complex biography. The five different contributions articulated in this paper could perhaps be taken as similar to the range of professional opinions seen in mental health teams, with each focusing on unique but overlapping aspects of the person’s story.

This account shows the importance of taking a biological-psychological-social-spiritual and cultural perspective on mental illness.

This multi-layered analysis brings a range of perspectives to bear on the life and achievements of Brian Wilson, from developmental, musical, psychological and lived experience standpoints.

Essay asks questions about people with schizophrenia and recovery.

The essay is written in an autoethnographic style.

The purpose of this paper is to portray the actual outcome for a person with schizophrenia, in the context of recovery and the achievement of independence.

Statistics are from review of various sources and are compared with autoethnographic data. The implications are to confirm social exclusion for the cohort of people with schizophrenia.

Practical implications include the recognition of the unusual destinations for those with schizophrenia.

Independence is a desirable and much espoused social outcome and yet so few people with schizophrenia are empowered in this way, meaning that they fail to share a social dialogue with many of their fellow citizens.

This essay details a struggle to live up to social norms which are hindered because of a life with schizophrenia.

The purpose of this study is to compare lived recovery journeys in mental health with recovery models.

Unstructured interviews with prompts were conducted with two individuals.

Some recovery models correspond in part with the live experience of subjects. These narratives have personal emphasis that is incongruent with the highlighted models. In particular, the subjects have a place for therapeutic interventions, i.e. talking therapies and medication.

The live experience of the two people with mental health issues crosses boundaries of recovery models. Relevant models include those used in peer support; however, they too do not fit exactly with the detailed journeys.

A varied approach without preconceptions is appropriate to understand the components of these two recovery journeys.

The medical model approach to mental health is not discounted rather it is integral to these two recovery journeys.

This is qualitative research using stated models of mental health recovery. In addition to the principles of hope, meaning, connectedness, identity and empowerment, the two subjects include the essential part for medication and talking therapies in their recovery.

The purpose of this paper (anonymised case study) is to explore political perspectives on the detention of patients under the Mental Health Act.

The approach is ethnographic and narrative.

The essay offers an exploratory explanation using political theory, of a violent and rebellious act by a person detained as a formal mental health patient. The protest relates to the treatment offered to the patient.

This essay offers a new explanation for a protest for a person detained as a compulsory mental health patient. The essay explores issues relating to political philosophy that the patient applies to their detention.

An understanding of how a patient with a background in academic politics is related in this essay. There is consideration of how an education in politics can be as valid in wellbeing, as a medical degree. It may be that more patients will be spared multiple hospital admissions by the use of effective therapies.

There is consideration of the debate about the fitness of current mental health legislation to enable wellbeing, and the debate about the review of mental health law begun in 2017.

This is a perspective of how political theory can inform individual acts. The political inquiry is not of dogma or ideology, either critical or affirming. The discourse is of rebellion with a purpose, not of revolution, class war or national dispute. However, aspects of works that are critical of psychiatry are included in the considerations.

The purpose of this paper is to validate peer support in mental health care.

Literature review and meta-analysis methodology are used.

The unintentional nature of peer support is a valid methodology for the understanding of mental health issues and mental health care.

The limitation is that peer experience should be accepted as a valued method for research.

Professional domains may not keep a monopoly of research approaches in mental health.

Peer support may mean more avenues for empowerment of mental health service users from peer role models who have unintentional acquaintance with mental health issues and care.

This research refers to ethnographic precedents to describe methodology relevant to twenty-first century peer support in mental health. It is original in valuing the unintentional participant observation acquired from experience of the mental health system.

The purpose of this study is to discuss alienation from a viewpoint of autoethnography. Literature since the 19th century has described the economic determinants of social relations. The proposition is that human beings are strangers in a world they have created. The author revisits this paradigm and aims to show the relevance of alienation in the 20th and 21st centuries.

This paper uses the qualitative methodology of autoethnography with data from lived experience. The author relates the author’s personal experience to the meta-narrative of alienation.

Autoethnography is an excellent tool for interpretation of the author’s experiences. The author’s work life correlates to models of alienation put forward by Marxist and Critical Theory thought. The author gave the surplus value of the author’s labour to others, and as such, the author’s autoethnography is an authentic statement. The author’s experiences of poor mental health are in the context of pathology residing in alienation.

Findings reveal that alienation in work and in mental health is a plausible explanation for the way that social situations worked for the author. The author’s experiences support a model of alienation in 20th and 21st century economies. The author shows that the author’s experiences are shared by other vulnerable people.