Complex mental health at work: a critical phenomenology of disclosure

This PhD research aims to go beyond traditional bio-medical conceptions of mental health rooted predominantly in Global North systems of knowledge by focusing on the experience of organisational disclosure for employees with complex mental health (CMH) biographies. CMH refers to experiences or conditions that are significant, and often have multiple forms of presentation (Davies et al., 2005) that may elude formal medical diagnoses. Given they are often highly stigmatised; cultural, and organisational intersections with ethnicity and disability are particularly complex in terms of how such individuals are included - or excluded- from work. Despite this, there is limited literature or conceptualisation surrounding CMH at work. Furthermore, while organisational disclosure is strongly linked with organisations 'wider disability policies and processes, and influences aspects such as workplace accommodations and support; much of the current literature on the topic is limited by quantitative outcome-based disclosure models.
To counter these challenges, the study will draw on organisational disclosure as an important analytical moment for understanding how employees, managers and organisations negotiate the complex ontological and epistemological terrain in which CMH identities in workplaces sit -often founded upon a normative ideal worker '(Konrad, 2018) that assumes organisational and social experiences and practices are stable, constant, and rational (Jammaers et al., 2016). The empirical work in the thesis adopts a qualitative, critical phenomenological approach which "combines insights regarding embodied lived experience with analyses of socio-political structures and power relations that frame, inform, and shape that experience" (Stanier et al., 2022: p. 4), and centres disclosure as not only an empirical focus, but also a theoretical imperative and methodological tool. More specifically, it employs semi-structured interviews using photo elicitation and vignettes with two participant groups: Group 1 (18 UK-based employees who self-identify as having a CMH) and Group 2 (12 UK-based employers who have experience being disclosed to (e.g.: line managers)).