Abstract
This paper presents a design-led, arts-based intervention developed to improve care for patients experiencing mental dysregulation in emergency healthcare contexts. In response to growing systemic pressures on emergency departments—where somatic urgency often overrides psychological needs—this project explores how metaphorical and embodied methods can support more relational, context-sensitive forms of care. Using the metaphor of tailoring, the project brings together healthcare professionals, patients with lived experience, and design researchers in a co-creative process. Participants collaboratively created metaphorical “care jackets” to express their perspectives on mental dysregulation. These wearable artifacts served as narrative and performative objects, enabling reflection on roles, assumptions, and care practices. Through participatory sessions, we collected qualitative data on how both patients and professionals experience and interpret moments of dysregulation, and how they relate to each other in crisis situations. The resulting intervention includes an installation that stages a fictional tailoring studio, along with film, tools for co-regulation, and a revised triage instrument. These elements invite healthcare teams to reflect on the relational and affective dimensions of care, and to challenge dominant discourses that frame mental distress as unpredictable or disruptive. By combining narrative methods, performative research, and co-design, this project opens up space for reimagining care encounters. It demonstrates how metaphor and material practice can be used not only to surface tacit knowledge, but to create shared language and transform perspectives on mental health in acute medical settings.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Emotional vs Artificial Intelligence: A Paradigm Shift in Healthcare?
KEYWORDS
MENTAL,DYSREGULATION, EMERGENCY,HEALTHCARE,PARTICIPATORY,DESIGN, ARTS-BASED, METAPHORS, CO-CREATION, RELATIONAL, INNOVATION, PRACTICE, CONNECTION
