Epiphanies and research in the field of mental health.

Accessible summary · This article looks at the richness inherent in our life experience and engages on a journey to examine this richness in the light of two experiences (or epiphanies) on a clinical training course. It demonstrates how, as a result of continued refection and reflexive analysis, my understanding of these experiences transformed over a period of time. · The field of inquiry was a training in psychoanalytic counselling. My ongoing analysis of the experiences provided an evaluation of some key features of that culture and the nature of clinical training, particularly in psychoanalytic milieu. · The article concludes with a discussion about the academic culture in which I am now working and the way in which it influences my writing style (in, for example, this article). It concludes that the discourse of this culture prevents us from reaching our creative spiritual core and examines how we can overcome this limitation. In this paper I will argue that investigating our professional experiences can enrich our understanding, widen our perspective, transform our inner lives and create an endless source of discovery about ourselves, society and the professional discursive systems that we inhabit. I will call such events, after Denzin's work in 1989, epiphanies. In order to develop the theme I will give an account of my own experience of two such epiphanies on a psychoanalytic training course in counselling. I will then present my reflexive analysis of these events over the years, including my reflections on the peer review comments for this paper, and finish with some questions arising out of the study relating to the current status of nursing as an academic profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]