Navigating the Mental Healthcare Network through a Communication Complex Perspective: An Autoethnography

Abstract

Mental illness is one of the largest health problems in the world and it has grown worse due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Every nation, across all demographic categories, has experienced growth in mental health issues. In many countries there is a serious shortage of mental health professionals to serve the population. While we are relatively better off in the US, the next level question that arises regards service quality. The availability of treatment does not serve well if it does not serve to heal. The problem under investigation examines the interrelationship of mental illness and communication. More specifically, the focus will be on mental illness treatment from an emic perspective. The analysis is framed from a communication complex perspective which treats communication as a dynamic process that is both bioactive and systemic. The method of study is autoethnography and with detailed stories that the author has gone through in their own mental health journey. Autoethnography is a method that seeks to provide evocative and rich description of an individual within an ethnographic setting. The autoethnography will look at four stories that have occurred in the past about mental healthcare networks and problems inherent within them. A discussion on key takeaways from the events described illuminates the limitations and challenges of the current mental healthcare network as well as how a communication complex perspective can enable system improvement.