The two worlds of being and becoming: the interaction between the identities of expert-by-experience and social work academic

“I sit at my desk and waves of anxiety and stress keep washing over me and then receding. I struggle to put my fingers on the keyboard and write this article. I know that it is time to work—but I fight with these emotions. I feel low and lack motivation—but it is time to work. I have trained myself well to fight to ‘get on with it’ and be the academic I am supposed to be, putting aside the service user identity. The tension between the 2 worlds of being and becoming; a service user and a social work academic”

I have written previously about occupying 2 worlds as both a social work academic and mental health service user (1, 2). This constant striving to be an effective academic both supports and negates my recovery journey, because my positive identity is strongly linked to my professional success, yet the stress and anxiety undermine my sense as a competent academic (2). However, as a successful academic with a mental health diagnosis, people often deny the complexity of my mental ill-health and its constant interaction with my academic role in the workplace (3). Thus, I explore in this article the identity of being and becoming a social work academic in the context of the lived experience of mental ill-health...