Using Narrative to Reflect on Three Therapeutic Models in Taiwan: Lessons for Community Approaches to Child Mental Health

As the shortcomings of deinstitutionalization
become evident, models of institution-based
therapeutic communities are starting to appear
as promising alternatives. While institution-based
therapy models produce desirable outcomes for
some categories of mental illness, these lessons
have not been applied to exploring community
approaches to child mental health. To this end, we
use an identity narrative approach to explore the
relation between mental illnesses and childhood
or adolescent development in narratives of
patients treated under different therapeutic models
for three conditions: severe mental illness (SMI),
substance abuse and ADHD. Only the ADHD
patients were children; the SMI and substance
abuse treatment models were designed for adult
patients. But all patient narratives showed the
illness had roots in childhood. This secondary analysis
examines patient narratives collected from three
independent projects between 2005 and 2013.
The oral history study of the Yu Li therapeutic
model for SMI was conducted from 2005 to 2006.
The project documenting a therapeutic model
for substance abusers in the Tsao Tun Psychiatric
Center was carried out from 2009 to 2010. Lastly,
we took oral histories from participants in an ADHD
family support group between 2011 and 2013.