Knowing our Own Minds: the role and value of experiential knowledge in mental health research

This session is part of the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health's Research Methods Primer and Provocation series.
This presentation explores the role and value of experiential knowledge in mental health research, with a particular focus on self-harm. Starting with the roots of experiential knowledge in service user and survivor movements and self-help spaces, the presentation looks at what we mean by ‘experiential knowledge’ and how it operates in a research and policy context driven by evidence-based medicine.
About the speaker: Alison Faulkner is a survivor researcher with around 30 years’ experience of working in mental health research and evaluation, mainly in the voluntary sector. She has personal experience of mental distress and self-harm; and of using mental health services. Alison has a PhD from City, University of London on the role and value of experiential knowledge in mental health research. She has been self-employed for over 20 years and has worked for most of the major UK mental health charities, including NSUN (the National Survivor User Network), Mind, Together, the McPin Foundation and the Mental Health Foundation. In recent years, much of her research and consultancy has focused on peer support, but she has enduring interest in improving acute inpatient services and services for people who self-harm.
Chaired by: Dr Angela Sweeney, Senior Lecturer in User Led Research, Service User Research Enterprise, King's College London