Though research has focused on clinical characteristics and behavioral problems of youth in out-of-home mental health placement settings, few studies have examined how adolescents and emerging adults (Arnett, 2000) experience and make sense of treatment. In this study, semistructured interviews regarding the experience of mental health placement were conducted with 12 adolescent and emerging adult participants with emotional and behavioral challenges, between the ages of 16 and 23. The participants were previously placed in residential mental health treatment centers, facilities, and inpatient hospitals. At the time of the interviews, all participants were involved in youth-run forums across New York State, through which they engage in peer-support initiatives and advocacy efforts aimed at reforming the children’s mental health system. Miles and Huberman’s suggestions for qualitative data coding (1994) were used to analyze the narratives. The participants identified salient conflicts when describing their experiences in restrictive mental health settings and also described the negative psychosocial ramifications of these experiences, including stigma and alienation. The findings suggest that by eliciting critical youth perspectives on mental health placement, a “counternarrative” emerges (Bamberg, 2004; Solis, 2004), which challenges and complicates clinically oriented discourses on youth with emotional and behavioral challenges. Implications for mental health reform and directions for future research are discussed.
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