ABSTRACT
Creative and critical autoethnographic approaches can bring a wide array of tools to mental health research which allow for critical interrogation of cultural structures that alienate, marginalise, and harm. Further, critical autoethnography provides a means for affective, evocative renderings of personal experience that go beyond linear or deficit-framed accounts of those living with mental health diagnoses. In this chapter, we explore what critical autoethnographic methods might offer mental health researchers, practitioners and “people with lived experience” of borderline personality disorder. We do this by bringing the practice of critical autoethnography into conversation with research on arts-based approaches to mental health treatment and recovery. And, true to the commitments of critical autoethnography, we bring our own stories of mental health diagnoses and stigma into this conversation with the hope that sharing these stories serves as a catalyst for understanding that leads to more sustainable, respectful, and fulfilling ways of living.
