Beyond relapse: what does the ODDESSI trial tell us about Open Dialogue?

“To be means to communicate dialogically.” – Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1984, p. 252)

Open Dialogue has attracted considerable interest in mental health services, and it is not difficult to understand why.

Developed in Western Lapland, Finland, initially in services treating psychosis, Open Dialogue is not simply another psychological therapy. It is both a therapeutic practice and a way of organising mental health care: responding rapidly in crisis, maintaining continuity of clinicians, involving family and social networks where wanted and appropriate, tolerating uncertainty rather than rushing towards decisions, and making decisions as collaboratively as possible.

These…