Postcards from abroad supported by a Florence Nightingale Foundation Travel Scholarship

Many patients and their families feel they are still not being listened to or being invited to be part of the decisions made about their care and treatment. A more fundamental way of structuring mental health services that places the patient and family/network at its centre is needed. Open Dialogue, which originated in Finland, may provide a significant advance to address these issues and is being piloted in several countries worldwide including the UK. This article outlines the development of Open Dialogue, the principles that underpin it, and how these principles permeate the whole Open Dialogue system. The Florence Nightingale Foundation travel scholarship enabled the author to visit Finland. The author then spent one week in England at a residential Open Dialogue training event, and three states in the USA (Massachusetts, Vermont and New York), where the principles of Open Dialogue were being integrated into their mental health systems. The article summarises these experiences and impressions from the...