Portraits in Blue is an Australian narrative research project, led by those who have lived experience of depression. Through the use of Sensemaker™ software and accompanying workshop processes, insights emerge into people’s experience of depression.
This has proved invaluable to a community support agency who was interested in better understanding the experiences of their client population. The service believed that their delivery focus was meeting the needs of their client groups, but were interested in understanding this better. They had made the assumption that young men when first diagnosed with depression were angry and frustrated. The service had developed groups to work with this. In looking at the emergent insights from the narrative, it became apparent that women in the 50-60 year age group, when first diagnosed, were the group who experienced anger and frustration. This was an extremely useful insight into the agency as they are committed to meeting the needs of their clients, and on the basis of this, were able to start to work towards a service re-direction.
