An Auto‐Ethnographic Study of “Open Dialogue”: The Illumination of Snow

Abstract

This auto-ethnographic study describes the changes in the author\u27s thinking and clinical work connected to her first-hand experience of Open Dialogue, which is an innovative, psychosocial approach to severe psychiatric crises developed in Tornio, Finland. In charting this trajectory, there is an emphasis on three interrelated themes: the micropolitics of U.S. managed mental health care; the practice of \u22dialogicality\u22 in Open Dialogue; and the historical, cultural, and scientific shifts that are encouraging the adaptation of Open Dialogue in the United States. The work of Gregory Bateson provides a conceptual framework that makes sense of the author\u27s experience and the larger trends. The study portrays and underscores how family and network practices are essential to responding to psychiatric crises and should not be abandoned in favor of a reductionist, biomedical model