Att leva bakom resten av världen - Upplevelser av erkännande och stigmatisering på verksamheter för meningsfull sysselsättning.

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis was to explore how people with psychiatric disabilities experience interventions of supportive occupation, and how it affects their well-being, sense of meaningfulness, and participation in society. Since the thesis aimed to explore the individuals’ feelings and experiences, it was based on a qualitative methodological approach. Through semi-structured interviews, the context in which our participants found themselves were captured. Furthermore, this approach ensured that they were given the freedom to describe their own perceptions of well-being, and their thoughts on the importance of supportive occupation. Seven participants from six different municipalities in Sweden, took part in the study. To interpret the empirical data and critically explore the impact of being a participant of supportive occupation-initiatives, theories on stigma and recognition were used as an analytical framework. The results indicate that supportive occupation can contribute to break social isolation and create a structure in the everyday life of people with psychiatric disabilities, which empirically comes forth as important to the participants’ personal development and sense of meaning in life. The findings further display that supportive occupation-initiatives provide a welcoming atmosphere free from stigmatizing norms. However, it parallelly tends to reproduce stigma, as the partaking in similar initiatives implicitly categorize the participants as unable to function in the ‘ordinary’ labour market, and very few participants actually do transit into employments. Hence, the overall conclusion of the study is that supportive occupation-initiatives lack in helping individuals’ transition to labour market participation, which limits the participants’ opportunities of self-realization, employment and a recognition as valuable individuals in society.