Call for contributions to a special issue of the Behavioral Sciences journal

The Guest Editor of “First-Person Narratives of Mental Illness and Wellbeing”, Professor Olivia Sagan (Queen Margaret University), invites researchers working in the areas of loneliness, solitude, and spiritual experience to consider submitting a paper.

The Special Issue seeks to unite diverse behavioral disciplines in exploring first-person narratives of mental health and wellbeing in the 21st century. First-person stories provide unique insight, challenge assumptions, and disrupt stereotypes. Since the narrative turn in the social sciences, such accounts have enriched knowledge, empowered marginalized voices, and deepened understanding. Yet, debates in critical discourse remind us that language can reproduce inequality, trapping narrators in disempowering stories of trauma and victimhood. Today, narrative studies must also confront misinformation, fake news, social media amplification and silencing, and the growing influence of AI in shaping and distorting voices. We invite theoretical and empirical contributions that broaden and challenge how first-person narrative informs research, practice, and lived experience. Submissions may include first-person accounts or analyses of narrative use in various contexts. Academics, practitioners, artists, activists, and people with lived experience are all welcome to contribute.

The deadline for manuscript submissions is 15 September 2026. For any details, please contact: osagan@qmu.ac.uk.