Identifying problems and solutions to qualitative research privileging “rich” data within psychosis research

Mental health research often seeks to witness, understand and empower marginalised communities through use of methods such as qualitative research. Although, qualitative research has the tendency to favour rich and meaningful segments of data to represent peoples’ lived experiences.The neurodiversity movement has identified and challenged the ableism which can arise with the application of these research methods that have normative assumptions about human minds and language production. However, schizophrenia and psychosis qualitative research has so far been under considered in efforts to reduce these forms of ableism in research. This paper highlights how mental health researchers can resist and reject the ableism that comes from adopting ‘rich data’ as representative of the lived experiences of those with schizophrenia. Qualitative research may occlude the real experiences of indidivuals with schizophrenia if they are not heard or represented in the multitude of ways they themselves communicate or articulate themselves, the language they use and the stories they tell. This article provides solutions to meaningfully represent those with schizophrenia and their voices in all stages of the research process so that the available research in the field accurately reflects the needs and experiences of those with schizophrenia.