Falling UP and caring for better

If we better understand unique one-to-one relationships, can design research help us become ‘healthier’ as a species? And by appreciating flourishing as a reciprocal achievement, what behaviours and/or mindsets need to change in design education? This chapter draws upon the development of original creative research, ‘Falling UP’, in which the study’s premise is a negative bias towards neurodiversity, and the dominant current mental healthcare model is a life-diminishing service. This failure is exacerbated when a person has multiple acute mental illnesses, as in ‘Falling UP’. The chapter thus discusses observations of the extraordinary powers of the human mind and spirit. And through involvement with the research, it positions the activity of design as flourishing as part of a place-based ecosystem. In doing so, it seeks to support the development of holistic services and policies for mental illness in order to attain the social and embodied connectedness that can sustain healthy communities.