ABSTRACT
We are very grateful to the editors, Mike Slade and Stefan Priebe, for the opportunity to contribute to this book. As we understand it, our role is to provide a broad overview of the relationship between the dynamics of postmodernism and questions concerning mental health research. The focus of the book is evidence: how it is gathered and how it is used. The editors write that their approach is rooted in ‘postmodern epistemology’ and question the idea that ‘evidence’ is an absolute concept, something that can be evaluated separately from background context. The central theme is that there are different sorts of ‘research consumers’ in the field of mental health, and each may require evidence produced by different research approaches. The range of chapters reflects this approach to an extent. Our contribution will develop some of the themes raised by Peter Beresford in Chapter 19.
