Spaces of ‘Sanctuary’

This chapter explores service user's embodied experiences and how these expressions are spatially distributed within home spaces including the outside garden space. Research has indicated that service users are largely unable to engage in 'normal' behaviours associated with cleaning and the ordering of space and objects within home spaces. The spaces of home were crucial milieus for all service users, from which expression and identity emerged, which were largely enveloped within psychiatric dialogues. The structural elements of home spaces are bound up with the processes of wider social norms and self-identity. Home for service users can therefore be a space of safety and sanctuary or indeed a space of exhausting obstacles to overcome. In terms of mental health, research has been conducted with service users both young and old to assess the impacts of gardening and psychological well-being. Findings suggest that collaborative gardening reduces feelings of social isolation together with lessening physical and psychological degradation.