2026/04/13 by Uisce Jordan, Marian Peacock · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis #Social Work Education and Practice #Youth Education and Societal Dynamics
paper · doi:10.1332/14786737y2026d000000068
openalex publication_date 2026/04/13 · openalex created_date 2026/04/15 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This article presents a psychosocial study of men unable to work due to mental illness and their encounters with the UK’s social security system, using the Free Association Narrative Interview (FANI) method. Drawing on interviews with 17 men in North-West England, it highlights the central yet often overlooked role of women, particularly mothers and partners, in male participants’ narratives. It explores how these relationships serve as a form of relational legitimacy, offering emotional and practical support in the face of an increasingly punitive and neoliberal social security system. The analysis firstly locates the broader socio-political context before situating the relational dynamics, arguing in the context of declining community and mental health services, and increasingly punitive welfare reforms, those needing to claim benefits, specifically those with mental health difficulties, are becoming ever more reliant on the support of female family members, as a substitute for a welfare state which has been defunded and delegitimised. The article concludes by reflecting on how the FANI method served to both elicit the data and facilitated keeping in sight the psychic and social forces which interpenetrate, shaping the lives of the participants. This article foregrounds the importance of attending to unconscious processes and relational entanglements when analysing the impact of structural changes on individual lives. A psychosocial approach, it argues, reveals how structural reforms and personal lives are deeply intertwined in shaping experiences of mental illness and welfare ‘dependence’.