Using an adapted reflecting team approach to learn about mental health and illness with general nursing students: an...

This paper describes how a reflecting team informed by outsider-witness practices was used in a classroom with a small group of Australian general nursing students to explore their understandings of mental illness and people with mental illness. The reflecting team process helped students to go beyond the media stereotypes of mental illness and the people who suffer from mental illness. It helped them develop new understandings of the lives of people who experience mental illness. The process also enabled students to learn more about stigma and its debilitating effects, to speak about it and to monitor their own language use, and to identify and explore their preferred interpersonal approaches in future practice settings when dealing with people showing signs of mental distress.