In providing support through safeand secure accommodation, Everyone In also provided a crucial moment ofvisibility for migrants experiencing homelessness. Yet, just as it providedlife-changing opportunities for some, the scheme was not straightforwardly acelebratory moment for migrants. It remained embedded within a wider context ofimmigration governance and social inequality in the UK, which has bothinvisibilised migrant homelessness as a crisis and hypervisibilised migrants asundeserving, suspicious or ‘illegal’ subjects. In this article, we explorelife-story narratives co-produced with migrants across three urban contexts thatcapture their experiences of homelessness before and during the pandemic. Indoing so, we introduce the notion of cultivated invisibility,referring to a habitual, deeply-ingrained mode of practice through whichmigrants respond to and navigate their experiences of being read as ‘Other’, inracialised or classed terms. It is developed through conditions of materialscarcity and in the course of multiple engagements with racial capitalism’svarious ‘faces of the state’ in an increasingly hostile environment formigrants. Cultivated invisibility involves staying on the move and blending intothe crowd or avoiding it altogether but it also includes the experience of beingunseen despite having come forward for help. Importantly, we demonstrate thatcultivated invisibility becomes a cause of illegalisation, just as much as aresponse to it.The UK government’s Everyone In scheme, announced in March 2020, required localauthorities to temporarily house  In providing support through safe and secure accommodation,Everyone In also provided a crucial moment of visibility for migrants experiencinghomelessness and for migrant homelessness more broadly, as many migrants encounteredhomelessness organisations for the very first time, and vice versa.Somewhat paradoxically, COVID-19 brought to many migrants experiencing homelessnessin the UK the life-changing benefit of unprecedented access to statutory support.This was previously inaccessible due to both various immigration policies which haveblocked migrants from accessing welfare services and, for migrants who were eligiblefor support, various practical constraints ranging from a lack of knowledge ofservices available to them and racialised experiences of dismissal on the part oflocal authorities. The UK government’s Everyone In scheme , announc1Yet, just as it provided life-changing opportunities for some, Everyone In was notstraightforwardly a celebratory moment for migrants. It remained embedded within awider context of immigration governance and social inequality in the UK, which hasboth invisibilised migrant homelessness as a crisis and hypervisibilised migrants asundeserving, suspicious or ‘illegal’ subjects. The introduction of ‘HostileEnvironment’ measures in 2012 required support services to assess the in/eligibilityof service users and led to data sharing in relation to ‘illegal’ immigrants roughsleeping , making cultivated invisibility to capture the multiple andintersectional ways in which migrants have internalised invisibilisation as anembodied disposition and learnt to survive without statutorysupport, this article explores enduring experiences of migrant invisibilitythroughout the pandemic despite the supposedly ‘visibilising’ force of the EveryoneIn response. As we show, for numerous migrants, experiences of Everyone Inreaffirmed a distrust of homelessness support. Rather than approaching the pandemicas a ‘crisis’ in the sense of a break in the normal, then, we consider it as ‘anamplification of something [already] in the works’  eligibility for statutory support has become increasinglystringent in the years since 2013, when the government introduced measures targetedexplicitly at ‘restrict(ing) access to benefits for migrants from the EuropeanEconomic Area (EEA)’ conditions,a (EEA)’ , p. 3. FThese realities, in tandem with the classed positionalities that many migrants occupywithin precarious and/or informal economies, make migrants in the UK extremelyvulnerable to homelessness, and also make it exceptionally difficult for them toovercome homelessness. Part of the work of our research is to provide a way toaccount for the complex interrelations of these dynamics in shaping, as Pughunderscores, ‘the ability (or not) to access in practice the formal protections andrights that are guaranteed in formal law’ , p. 1. Tstrategy pursued by – again, ‘irregular’, ‘undocumented’,‘illegal’ – migrants as a way to mitigate the risk of deportation or challengeexclusion  and neoliberal policies of successive governments . CultivaCultivated invisibility does not deny the possibility of consciously-formulateddecisions even if these are practical adaptations based on what is possible in thegiven circumstances. In our research, many migrant participants provided specificdetails about how they sought to blend into the crowd in order to avoid suspicionand avoid situations that might be threatening. For example, respondents explainedhow they slept on public transport and adopted the role of commuters on their way towork in order to avoid attracting attention. Our research suggests that throughcultivated invisibility, migrants both adapt to life without statutory services and,ultimately, learn to avoid them. Importantly, whilst the cultivated invisibilityafforded by ‘passing’ or going unnoticed in space can ensure comfort, safety andsurvival for urban inhabitants already defined as outside of the dominant hegemonic,this is not to suggest that cultivated invisibility ensures ‘safety’ for migrants.Indeed, it is the invisibility of migrants experiencing homelessness, and migranthomelessness more broadly, that has made homeless migrants particularly vulnerableto harm, ill-health and premature death .out ofplace, whether in relation to hegemonic notions of respectability do. However, as our research shows, it is difficult to comeforward when you have long experienced a sense of being tability,becausetability; or in rtability.Whilst migrants experiencing homelessness are clearly not a homogeneous group, theydo share – in Simmel’s terms – the role of the stranger who ‘comes today and staystomorrow’ . Neverthwandering homelesspeople, aggressive beggars, muggers, anonymous black youths anddrug addicts. . Here, Simone Browne alertsus to the racialised and racialising nature of surveillance, in which ‘surveillancepractices, policies and performances concern the production of norms pertaining torace and exercise a “power to define what is in and out of place”’ .For Browne, the Foucauldian notion of surveillance as ‘integral to modernity’ mustalso make explicit that ‘today’s seeing eye is white’  was conducted through semi-structured interviews. Inphase two, life-story interviews were conducted with migrants. We gathered 37interviews with staff, and over 100 hours of life-story narrative interviews with 43migrants, some of whom were receiving homelessness support through the services withwhich we have partnered. Indeed, it was largely down to the Everyone In initiativethat we were able to build connections with migrants who would not previously havebeen accessing homelessness support for, as we have noted, a wide variety ofreasons. In line with the im/possibilities of social distancing measures – whichfluctuated throughout – interviews were conducted face-to-face and remotely viavideo-call and/or audio-call settings. All except two interviews were voice-recordedand transcribed, and where voice-recording was declined, transcripts were producedvia interview notes. Most interviews were conducted in English; interpreters wereused in 12 cases. At moments when lockdown restrictions were eased, we alsoconducted ethnographic research with homelessness organisations across our researchsites.As a research parameter, we defined both ‘homeless’ and ‘migrant’ in the broadestpossible sense. How ‘homeless migrants’ are defined plays a crucial role in how theyare made visible or invisible both socially and politically. Assuming who ‘counts’as a migrant risks excluding more complex or non-linear experiences of geographicmovement and stasis, and relies overmuch on definitions from the state immigrationapparatus . In our research we considered homeless migrants to include anyindividuals who are non-UK nationals (including those who now hold Britishcitizenship) and who define themselves as homeless. All of our respondents were bornoutside of the UK.We pursued pseudonymous life-story narrative methods for making space for complexpersonhoods and messy experiences see also , acknowlAll data were analysed through using thematic analysis . As aniIn line with the scope of this article, and in order to provide space for morecomplex intersectional accounts of invisibility, we have chosen to focus on fourlife-story narratives, those of Albert, Ali, Alexandru and Joshua. These individualswere chosen as reflective of the different circumstances of our participants morebroadly: Albert is a German man who had lived in the UK for 46 years with indefiniteleave to remain as an ‘EEA migrant’ (until Brexit); Ali is an Afghan man who hadheld refugee status in the UK for 22 years, with recourse to public funds; Alexandruis a Romanian man who had arrived in the UK four years ago in search of work as an‘EEA migrant’; and Joshua is an ‘undocumented’ Singaporean man without recourse topublic funds, although he had held a regular visa status – as a student – on arrivalto the UK 35 years ago. Focusing on these stories enables us to illustratedis/continuities in migrants’ experiences of visibility beyond ‘illegality’, as wellas allowing us precisely the rich detail necessary for our account of invisibilitybeyond the ‘strategic’. Here, all four ‘case studies’ are based on accounts providedby men. Importantly, and despite our efforts, our research engaged far fewer womenthan men, indicating the need for further research on the gendered politics ofinvisibility in relation to migrant homelessness.In this section, and through the life stories of Albert and Joshua, we demonstratethe co-constitutive relationship between (cultivated) invisibility and illegality.In both cases, invisibility was not simply an effect of illegality but emergedthrough a complex interaction between class, racialisation and immigration status,which, in turn, produced the conditions for increasing proximity to illegality. Astheir stories show, it was in fact job loss which provided a key moment in Albert’sand Joshua’s invisibilisation, as being made redundant led to a loss of housing,which then in turn led to a lack of access to crucial immigration advice andsupport. Cultivated invisibility provides a crucial lens of analysis forunderstanding the intersectional experiences of homeless migrants between austerity,racialisation and immigration governance.EveryoneIn. Like many migrants who have experienced homelessness, Albert’sID documents had been lost over the years, hindering his ability to secure‘settled status’ after Brexit.Albert is a 71-year-old man, who arrived from Germany in 1975. For many years heworked in hospitality and catering, house-sharing with colleagues who laterbecame friends. As he grew older, Albert became unable to find contemporaries tolive with. When opportunities to house share dried up Albert reasoned thatbecause he was working night-shifts at a fast-food restaurant he did not needanywhere to stay, as ‘when other people were sleeping I was working . . . Iworked from 12 til 8 continuously. So, I’d get a couple of hours where nobodywas there.’ By 2000, when redundancies meant that Albert’s service as a cleanerwas no longer required, Albert adapted by shifting to the informal economy. Hisformer manager allowed him to sleep on the premises for a couple of hours inexchange for unwaged labour. Additionally, Albert worked for a market trader fora very small amount of cash-in-hand. He would distribute newspapers, receivingfreebies from market traders in return. The loss of formal work made Albertineligible for benefits because since 2013, hostile environment measures havesought to block EEA migrants from accessing benefits unless they can provideproof of ‘meaningful’ – regular, consistent and taxable – employment . ThissiI used to make sure that I’d wake up on time, so they wouldn’t have towake me up. And sometimes when it was a long route and I wanted tochange from another bus, I’d get off one or two bus stops too far andthen I had to walk back to go where I wanted to go, which was noproblem. But anyway, at least I’d make sure that I didn’t go right tothe end of the route . . . that I found out is a very good way aswell.Although Albert was homeless from the beginning of 2000 he is unlikely to havefeatured in any homelessness statistics because he did not seek out statutorysupport. Instead, Albert worked within the shifting constraints of his life inorder to survive. Firstly, it meant ‘blending in’ with the early-morningcommuters so as not to appear homeless. Secondly, it involved a habitual mode ofvigilance: Albert practises cultivated invisibility: this habitual, bodily disposition –developed out of necessity and under conditions of scarcity and suspicion –allowed him to move around the city unnoticed, and to catch a few minutes ofsleep without attracting attention. However, this practice also took him furtherin the direction of illegality through informal labour as well as beyond thesight of statutory support and homelessness organisations. As a consequence, hemissed the first round of Everyone In. As Albert notes, ‘I was always on themove. It was quite a long time before people realised that I had nowhere to go.’Albert was particularly vulnerable, as in the absence of support he livedwithout crucial resources such as ID documents, a bank account and a NationalInsurance number. Albert was largely unaware of the devastating changes thatBrexit would make to his legal right to remain in the UK. Before Everyone In,Albert did not know that he needed to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS)before the 30 June 2021 deadline and, either way, would not have known how toaccess or replace the necessary documents to apply. As we see in this example,Albert’s cultivated invisibility was a means of adaptation to job loss,homelessness and participation in the informal economy. However, as aconsequence, he had more exposure to illegality.Joshua is a 75-year-old man. Already a successful police officer in Singapore,Joshua travelled to the UK in 1986 to undertake a law degree. During his secondyear, Joshua was informed that his student visa renewal application had beenrejected by the Home Office as it was one day late. He appealed and won but onlyafter three years, meaning that Joshua missed his final exams. Joshua was given21 days to leave the country but won another appeal and stayed. He built asuccessful life but his immigration status still included a NRPF condition. In2012, Joshua was made redundant, and losing his job led to losing hisaccommodation (which he had had for 17 years).I used to take bus number 25 service – I believe that was the longestservice road in the UK, number 25, which used to start from OxfordStreet in the West End of London right to the East End of London. So, Iused to take the bus about nine or ten at night-time and I would make upand down from one terminal to the other terminal, three or fourtrips.Joshua emphasised his reluctance to intrude on other people’s private spaces.Instead, he chose to sleep on the night buses: In common with many respondents, Joshua found ways to move among the crowdwithout being observed. This was especially important to him as he was keen toavoid imposing on anyone or to take something to which he was ‘not entitled’.Joshua’s practice of cultivated invisibility was inculcated through having losthis income and place of residence through a brutal work restructuring whilstalso being forced into successive lopsided battles with an increasingly hostileHome Office for his right to remain in the UK. Joshua’s story exemplifies howthe practice of cultivated invisibility enabled him to adapt to his precarioussituation but also rendered him more exposed to illegality.There were days as long as two weeks I never had a sleep, where if at allI slept somewhere maybe on a chair in a cafe or a shop. There wereinstances I was drinking coffee – that was my sleep.Somehow, Joshua managed to maintain his stance as an Anglophile, despite beingmade to feel ‘out of place’. However, he now had to blend in to the crowds tomaintain his sense of dignity, and he registered at a gym where he could shower,exercise and wash his clothes. He also managed to get moments of sleep in cafes: Years of moving from place to place, finding ways of eating, washing and sleepingby practising cultivated invisibility, took their toll on Joshua’s health,especially as he didn’t have the requisite documents to access healthcare. Helost the sight in one eye, lost most of his teeth and contracted diabetes duringhis period of homelessness, which lasted until 2018 when he was approached byoutreach workers at a bus terminal. Despite numerous setbacks due to his NRPFstatus, caseworkers were finally able to secure safe and stable accommodationfor Joshua. Now, they are working to secure his indefinite leave to remain after20 years of UK residency.[What] the scheme has done during the pandemic has increased the visibilityof a lot of people that are rough sleeping who might be missed or not beassessed or might not be able to seek support. So, I know that we’ve seen abig increase in terms of the people that we are seeing and able to makereferrals for. In March 2020, the UK Government announced the Everyone In scheme in England . ResearcA lot of our clients just don’t know that, [they] have no understanding oftheir benefits and entitlements . . . [they] just don’t know what theirentitlements are and how to access them. And yes, that’s why they end uphomeless. Almost no European national, until we tell them or support themwith that, have known that they’re entitled to benefits, a lot of them don’teven know what benefits are. In providing access to support services, the scheme also made welfare assistancevisible to those migrants who may have previously been eligible but unaware of theirentitlements: all individuals experiencing homelessness, Everyone Inintervened crucially in the invisibility cultivated through intersectionalexperiences of racialisation, immigration governance, exploitative workingconditions and the housing crisis. Everyone In provided Ali with some respite fromthe racialised politics of access to accommodation. Meanwhile, it saved Alexandrufrom potential deportation by enabling access to immigration advice.In this section, Ali and Alexandru elucidate the potentially life-changingconsequences of Everyone In. In providing access to emergency accommodation forAli is a 41-year-old man from Afghanistan, with refugee status granted 22 yearsago. Ali was not offered mental health support during his asylum process,despite struggling with symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Ali’smental health led to risky patterns of behaviour, including driving under theinfluence. This resulted in a criminal record and prison time, blocking Ali fromsecuring employment, stable housing (in the form of his own tenancy) andcitizenship rights in the years since, as access to all of these are hindered byrecorded criminal convictions. For some years Ali successfully sofa-surfed,drawing on a solid friendship network. When options dried up in 2018, he begansleeping in his car. Two years of this led to extreme weight loss and skin andjoint problems. Finally, Ali’s GP signposted him to a local homelessness supportorganisation, and he was eventually accommodated through Everyone In. Ali’s wifeand children continue to live in a refugee camp in Pakistan.[They would say], ‘there’s plenty of people sleeping in the town. So,it’s not only you . . . there’s plenty more there’. Then my mind wassaying, no, I have PTSD, I’ve got a problem. ‘Oh, lots of people havethe same problem’. Everything I tried to excuse to them, and they wouldtry to just push me back.Ali’s experiences of cultivated invisibility centred on multiple failed attemptsof seeking support from his Local Authority, support that Ali was entitled to asa refugee. Ali recalls feeling repeatedly ignored by Local Authoritycaseworkers, who he felt were minimising his situation: EveryoneIn. Ali’s emergency accommodation provided him with a safe place tostay and washing facilities. Prior to the pandemic, hygiene was a huge issue forAli: Nobody can give you anything if you be sleeping rough. You’ve got noshaving, you’ve got no clean shoes, you’ve got no clean you, didn’t havea shower for three months, four months, so I don’t think that somebodywill interested to give you accommodation, forget about a one bedroomflat.In the context of a housing crisis, accommodation options are increasinglyscarce. Yet, Ali also felt that local authority housing officers wereparticularly dismissive of him because he was a refugee, and he situated theseencounters within a wider context of racialised and racist encounters with thepolice, the Home Office, the Job Centre and the general public. After severalattempts, Ali gave up on seeking support and worked instead to keep himself safeby sleeping in his car, parked up in a local car park which he knew to be emptyat night. Cultivated invisibility meant that Ali was not picked up byhomelessness outreach workers, and it was instead his doctor who made him awareof local support services, after which he was housed through For Ali, Everyone In has been most centrally an experience of becoming visible.Alongside emergency accommodation, the scheme introduced Ali to support workerswho could advocate on his behalf. In shining a light on the sheer volume ofindividuals vulnerable to homelessness in the UK, Everyone In has also led toincreased funding for local homelessness responses that is translating intolong-term housing solutions for people like Ali. Ali’s caseworker explored hisparticular circumstances and liaised with the Local Authority’s housing team onhis behalf. After a short time in emergency accommodation, Ali was set up withan affordable room of his own that he can stay in indefinitely, paid for monthlyby statutory housing benefit.and as an individual with a particular life history –that was the most life-changing consequence of Everyone In.For Ali, this was finally a place to sleep that felt ‘like home’, and whichprovided a good balance between feeling supported and feeling independent. AsAli explains, ‘they can clean your room, they can do everything for you, you canhave a breakfast, you can have tea or coffee’. For Ali this is incrediblyuseful, as his mental health issues can sometimes make self-care difficult.Nevertheless, that the room is not in a purpose-built support block means thatAli has ‘no restrictions’ on his movements and (unlike in a hostel) he can ‘goanytime out’ and ‘come anytime inside’. That his accommodation is quiet allowsAli to manage his PTSD symptoms; its ground floor location also helps with hislower back problems. For Ali, it was this feeling of being seen – both ashomeless Alexandru is a 40-year-old man from Romania, who arrived in 2017. This being justone trip of many across his adult life, Alexandru did not plan to stay long-termbut rather intended to work here temporarily. In the UK, Alexandru’s employmentexperiences were exploitative. All of his employers paid cash in hand, notmaking him aware of requirements like National Insurance numbers or taxation.When work opportunities vanished, Alexandru was blocked from claiming welfaresupport as he was unable to evidence his employment and, therefore, could notpass the ‘Habitual Residence Test’  or his LIn suspending eligibility criteria for support, Everyone In led to a significantparadox for homeless migrants: namely, that whilst the pandemic caused a momentof crisis and insecurity it also provided (for some) respite and safety. ForAlexandru, aspects of the pandemic were, in fact, ‘lovely’, not least that itwas the first time he had felt safe after years of sharing precariousaccommodation or rough sleeping. Alexandru felt strongly that easy access tofood had been the biggest improvement in his everyday life. Having lived for solong without access to and/or knowledge of support, Alexandru had relied uponbegging in order to eat, a traumatic experience that he still struggles to talkabout. Aside from meals provided by the Local Authority, the encounter withhomelessness services also meant a new wealth of knowledge regarding widersupport available locally, including church provisions and foodbanks. Thisknowledge will last well beyond the pandemic, providing a previously unknowablesafety net. Church groups have also led to social connections, including afriend who keeps Alexandru’s phone topped up and who gave him the money tosecure his National Insurance number.The bottom line is that I didn’t have a clue of what my rights were whenI came to this country and what to do.I: When did that change?When I started mingling with people and being here.Similarly to Albert, when Alexandru lost his travel documents on a night out hehad no idea of how to replace them. Alexandru also had no knowledge of the EUSettlement Scheme, or of the fact that without settled status he wouldeventually be forced to leave the UK after Brexit. As he explains: In making him visible as homeless, the Everyone In scheme included Alexandru in anetwork of resources, including a wider community of individuals with experienceof homelessness and of service providers. These invaluable sources ofinformation helped Alexandru to meaningfully approach his situation for thefirst time. Due to the scheme Alexandru was able to secure settled status,alongside knowledge of employment standards, welfare entitlements and how toaccess them. He now has permanent work, and a secure tenancy of his own.In this section we highlight how cultivated invisibility endures over time and alsohow new experiences (such as Everyone In) reinforce it. For Albert, it remainedingrained in his body; for Alexandru, it remained embedded in his interactions withservice providers.I: So, was it just [because of] the cold spell that people saw that youwere needing a place or . . . how do you think you were spottedthen?I don’t know! It’s a guess really. Probably what made it worse wasbecause it was restricted and you were not allowed to travel anyway, atthis time. Probably, 95% of people at the station at this time werehomeless anyway, so I think that’s why it happened.When Everyone In was launched in March 2020, Albert was not immediatelyidentified as in need of help. However, his cultivated invisibility lost itseffectiveness in early 2021 when the icy weather set in. The national lockdownat that time meant there were fewer people on the buses and largely desertedtrain stations made their lack of a home more visible to outreach workers andthe state: Yea so I’ve got this place now. I’ve been here about three months, and Ithought things would change. But I’ve found that every night I wake upand I look at my watch and it’s been half an hour or 55 minutes or 1hour and 5 minutes. Every single night I wake up, not because it’s noisyor anything like that, I just wake up. I go 11 o’clock to bed, I go tosleep and then I wake up and I look at my watch, oh, 12 o’clock. So, Ithink of something, turn off the light and go back to sleep again untilI wake up again. It’s like a dream, it’s like an episode, until you wakeup and you see oh it’s only been an hour again. But every night, everynight is the same. And I don’t need an alarm clock, because like today Iwake up 4 o’clock, wake up 5 o’clock, wake up six o’clock no problem. IfI have to wake up at four o’clock I get up, if not I turn back round tosleep, five o’clock I wake up again.Cultivated invisibility means that many migrants are likely to have missed out onat least some of the benefits associated with the Everyone In initiative.Albert’s cultivated invisibility also came with side-effects when he finally hada place to stay in the hotels. He had developed a deep-set inability to sleepbeyond the duration of an average bus journey. He woke up every hour; thishyper-vigilance was inscribed in his bodily disposition as an enduring effect ofinvisibility, cultivated over the longue durée of his vulnerability: Whilst the scheme had somewhat interrupted Albert’s cultivated invisibility, along-term process of invisibilisation as a result of job loss, destitution  and homelessness remained inscribed on hisbodily rhythms.I feel that they always put my requests at the bottom of the list . . .I’m not complaining that they don’t help. It’s just that they never seemto prioritise [me].For Alexandru, invisibility remained a core concern throughout the crisis.Alexandru described feeling unseen within the homelessness service charged withhis care: In this example, we see that Alexandru’s cultivated invisibility is a product ofhis interaction with support staff, which leaves him feeling unseen andunvalued. As such, invisibility is reinforced in embodied, interactional andhabitual ways even as Alexandru’s invisibility was supposedly interrupted by theEveryone In initiative. Here, Everyone In provides a crucial moment tounderstand the invisibilising effects of encounters with statutory services morebroadly, encounters that are productive of migrant distrust and avoidance ofservices in ways that cut across ‘irregular’ and ‘regular’ migrantcategorisations.I mean, I was given these two clients and told I had to try and sort outtheir settled status and this and this and this. You may as well havebeen talking in a foreign language, ’cause it didn’t mean anything tome. Whilst Alexandru felt that he was treated differently as a Romanian, he alsodemonstrated awareness that support workers were constrained by their heavyworkload. Alexandru’s support worker consolidated this point, underscoring thatit was her two ‘non-UK national’ clients who had the most intricate andoverwhelming cases. Her struggle to address their problems derived in large partfrom a lack of training for homelessness support workers in immigration matters: Okay. So, I don’t think that I understand Brexit even now. So, I am notsure that I understand properly Brexit now. What I understand more nowis that Brexit is not about foreigners leaving the country. It’s aboutpeople paying taxes.Just as Everyone In provided an opportunity for previously ineligible migrants toaccess homelessness support, services were not always prepared for migrants’particular needs, having little experience with the interplay betweenimmigration policies and housing law. Immigration advice was particularlyimportant for Alexandru because he was trying to understand his situationpost-Brexit: No, I mean, I didn’t understand, even when I was given the case, ’causeI’d never worked with any migrants before. I didn’t know the differencebetween pre-settled and settled status. I didn’t know they had to applyfor this. I didn’t know any of this. So, I’ve had to learn and try anddo the best I can for him, all at the same time.Alexandru struggled to access information about the impact of Brexit on his legalright to remain in the UK. Without the requisite immigration training and accessto intepreters, Alexandru’s support worker was left to rely on Google in herattempts to understand the EUSS: It must be terrifying . . . Being him. ’Cause he knows. He knows . . .He’s got a calendar in his room with the date on.Alexandru’s support worker was also painfully aware of the effect of this uponhim: In common with others interviewed, Alexandru felt a high degree of uncertaintyabout the future, and fear that he would be invisibilised again when the COVIDresponse ended. Indeed, this was compounded by the temporary experience ofvisibility – shelter, food and clothing – that Everyone In made possible. Inaddition, Alexandru’s story highlights precisely the ways that invisibility,cultivated across multiple settings and encounters, has an illegalising effect.Without Everyone In, Alexandru would not have lodged his EUSS application,exposing him to deportation post-Brexit. At the same time, the invisibility ofmigrants within statutory services has also resulted in an absence ofimmigration knowledge amongst support workers themselves, hindering theirability to provide effective help.Whilst Everyone In provided opportunities for visibility, it also set in motion modesof visibility which felt uncomfortable, intimidating, and sometimes frightening.Just as unprecedented inclusion within a local and national homelessness responseprovided crucial resources for overcoming homelessness, new proximity to statutoryservices also engendered fresh modes of state regulation and surveillance . Ali’s aSurveillance is a racialised technology of discipline in which the state andexperience of being observed increase and deepen with one’s perceived distance fromnormative whiteness . Indeed,[You have to] put your name in here, and then, someone’s sitting at thedoor, to say, you know, I’m this, room number 38 . . . and they wake youevery day from sleep, like, I mentioned to you, if somebody has a mentalhealth issue, it’s not a suitable place to be lived at, because if yougo to sleep, and they’ll be knocking your door, saying wake up, thatwould mean your brain would be disturbing.Just as Ali’s experience of sleeping in his car was marked by fear andinsecurity, his experience of the emergency accommodation provided by EveryoneIn was not simply one of safety and security. The local government response tothe scheme provoked multiple forms of surveillance in emergency accommodationblocks which rubbed up against the particular context of Ali’s life, in whichsymptoms of PTSD have been a long-term struggle. In the apartment block in whichAli was living, surveillance mechanisms included security guards monitoring thedoors in and out of the accommodation, and ‘welfare’ checks throughout the day.As Ali describes: The security is hired by the council. We never had security prior to thehotels, it was something the council insisted on. We found it insultingactually, you know, we’ve only been doing this for years, and in thenight beds too – the most volatile environment you can work in . . .We’re pushing to have the security gone, it’s just too many cooks.For Ali, the frequent sound of door-knocking – whether his own door or those ofhis neighbours – triggered his PTSD symptoms, and the ability of staff to enterhis room upon him not answering jeopardised his feelings of control over hisspace and life. The particular context of Ali’s life, as someone who had fledviolent conflict to seek asylum in the UK, was effaced by a mechanistic responseto homelessness during the pandemic which was intent on making sure thathomeless individuals were kept off of the streets and inside their rooms. Suchvigilance was mobilised in order to protect wider ‘public health’ . Thepresence of security guards, from a private security firm subcontracted by theLocal Authority, was as much a source of discontent for support workers as forclients. As one senior support worker remarked: Yeah! They said: ‘We don’t give a damn about these people, they’re allpaedophiles’. And then I said, ‘hang on, I’m not a paedophile, what areyou talking about?’ And I just didn’t say to anybody, I wanted to getout as quickly as possible from that place.The inclusion of security surveillance introduced a fresh technology ofregulation for service providers and service users, and for Ali engendered asense of being hypervisibilised as a criminal or potentially criminal subject.This became all too much when one day, whilst walking towards the exit door tolog out ahead of a walk to town, Ali overheard a member of the security staffreferring to clients as ‘paedophiles’: charity oranything.I’m not expecting anything that is I also agree that the system here, the government here, has to be toughon immigration. You don’t come into my house and mess up my house. Youcome decently and live decently – I strongly believe in that.When Joshua suddenly lost his job, it was the NRPF condition attached to hisimmigration status that blocked him from accessing the support necessary toavoid homelessness. In common with others interviewed, Joshua appeared ashamedthat he was now in receipt of state support, and concerned that he might appearto be ‘exploiting’ the system: as a migrant, a presence which left himfeeling hypervisible as a potentially ‘undeserving’ (Now I’m being told once my papers have gone to the Home Office they willbe taking me out of this place, put in some private home for homelesspeople. Of course, I don’t like to go and live in somebody’s house. Ifeel that I would be interfering with their privacy. However nice theyare I don’t want to stand in their way. So that is something that isbothering me for the last few days. I was told about this last week. Idon’t know what they’re going to tell me, the manager concerned is onleave . . . I’m tempted, to be very frank, [to] go back to the bus, putmy feet somewhere, travel on the bus, because I don’t want to bothernobody.These unprompted statements illuminate Joshua’s need to justify his presencewithin support services serving’  subject.serving’ . ThisleWhilst Joshua was legally entitled to a room in a shared house, and would beliving with other individuals experiencing homelessness, he felt like taking theroom would be to encroach upon the ‘private’ space of the others he would beliving with – so much so that he was considering returning to using the nightbuses. In the context of an increasingly hostile environment for migrants in theUK, welfare services are constructed as normatively white spaces, leavingmigrants exposed as out of place, and questioning their own un/deservingness ofsupport. Joshua’s unambiguous expressions of discomfort relating to his housingsituation underscore his cultivated invisibility as embodied, habitual, and alsosensorial.strategic mode of action, deployed in response tothe fear of state violence and/or deportation, we argue that cultivated invisibilityis a habitual, embodied mode of practice created out of conditions of materialscarcity and in the course of multiple engagements over time with racialcapitalism’s various ‘faces of the state’. It involves blending into the crowdand/or staying on the move as a means of survival, but also results fromuncomfortable experiences of coming forward in search of help. During Everyone In,there were unprecedented, and very welcome, offers of help. At the same time,migrants experiencing homelessness were hypervisibilised by various forms ofsurveillance, and felt stigmatised as ‘matter out of place’. Their uncomfortableexperiences of being stigmatised in this way explains at least in part why theypractised cultivated invisibility before the COVID-19 crisis. Thinking about theexperiences of homeless migrants enables us to understand invisibility asintersectional, both produced and experienced along the lines of race, class andimmigration status. As such, it is impossible to separate the effects of the hostileenvironment from the effects of austerity. In addition, we see invisibility as morethan an effect of illegality, but rather as something that cuts across theexperiences of both regular and irregular migrants. As individuals becomeincreasingly invisibilised, through experiences such as precarious employment, jobloss, homelessness, destitution and exclusion from access to the welfare state,exposure to illegality is increased and exacerbated. Nowhere is this clearer, ormore devastating, than in the UK government’s 2021 announcement that rough sleepingwill increasingly function as grounds for deportation within the UK border regime(Drawing on the life stories of Albert, Joshua, Ali and Alexandru, this article seeksto attain a more nuanced understanding of migrant invisibility. We argue that the UKgovernment’s Everyone In during the COVID-19 crisis provides a key moment throughwhich to conceptualise this phenomenon. In contrast to research that views migrantinvisibility as a r regime. Ourres


The present study sought to inquire into the subjective experience of 156 preschoolers (age 4–6.9 years) living in an area of political violence in Israel (on the border with the Gaza Strip) during a period of massive bombing. Children were invited to draw a Person Picking an Apple from a Tree (PPAT), and were interviewed on their sense of self-potency using the CAMP, a measure of potency. Teachers were asked to report problems in executive functions using a few BRIEF scales; and mothers filled out a questionnaire for maternal distress (BSI), a measure of their child strengths and difficulties (SDQ), and were asked to provide their assessment regarding the extent to which their child was exposed to political violence. Findings reveal associations between mothers’ distress, the degree of exposure of their child to trauma, and the child’s emotional symptoms. PPAT analysis identified four main factors: Tree Generosity, Person Agency, Vividness, and As-Real-R. Positive associations were found between self-potency and the main factors of the drawings; negative associations were found between the child’s difficulties in executive functions and the drawing’s four main factors; and two small negative associations were found between the child’s emotional symptoms and Tree Generosity and As-Real-R factors. The following associations were found within each gender group: mothers’ depression degree was associated with boy’s Tree Generosity, and mother’s perceptions of their girl’s exposure to trauma was related to Person Agency, Tree Generosity, and As-Real-R factors; furthermore, a significant difference was found between the narrative focus of drawings in this sample and the narrative focus of drawings of a sample of the same age group from a non-war zone. In addition, narrative focus was found to be related to children’s self-potency. The discussion deals with the study’s findings through the prism of developmental psychology, self-agency, object-relations, and art-therapy theories. Civilians living in conflict-affected settings, who experience war, terror, military attacks and more, are exposed, as individuals and as a community, to immediate and unforeseen threats and danger. These situations were found to be associated with civilians’ reduced sense of safety, heightened anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms—PTSD e.g., ,2,3). PT,3. PT2,3The present study focused on preschool children who were born into a situation of persistent political violence that began in the area where they reside about 12 years before they were born. It may be thus assumed that their parents, who were about to serve as a protective envelope to their children, experienced their safety as compromised, due to constant uncertainty and alertness. It is well known that young children’s development, health, and well-being depend on their caregivers; for example, research showed that the mother’s well-being serves as a resilience factor ,8,9, whiSince events of political violence mainly function as threats and stressors in the children’s daily life, they can elicit fear and anxiety and other overwhelming feelings that arouse a sense of helplessness. These emotional states may be seen as a normal reaction to an abnormal situation . HoweverThe impact of prolonged political violence may be devastating to children’s well-being and development; however, its continued appearance may prompt civilians under fire and the community at large to be proactive; develop solutions for coping with the challenges; and provide children, families, and educational institutions suitable preventive resources, therapeutic interventions, and resiliency building routines  to suppoThe sense of potency among children living in environments of political violence Self-agency is the perception that the individual’s actions have an impact and influence the physical and relational environment . ResearcSince most of the research-tools for assessing preschoolers’ emotional state and subjective experiences are verbal ones, and raters are mainly stakeholders such as parents and teachers, the present body of research in this field lacks the child’s perspective and voice . The chiThe current research included the drawings of children ages 4–6.9 years, a period of life which incorporates two developmental stages in drawing according to Lowenfeld and Brittain . The firSignificant negative correlations were expected to be found between children’s self-potency, and emotional symptoms; executive functions (EFs) difficulties; and maternal stress.Significant correlations were expected to be found between mothers’ assessments as to degree of exposure of their children to events of political violence, maternal stress, and child’s emotional symptoms.Hypotheses of background variables:Hypotheses regarding the child’s PPAT drawingsSince the child’s gender was found to be an intervening variable in previous studies, all the following hypotheses were also examined in relation to gender. Significant positive correlations were expected to be found between child’s self-potency and positive content and form aspects in the PPAT.Significant negative correlations were expected to be found between child’s EFs difficulties/ emotional symptoms and content and form aspects in the PPAT.Significant correlations were expected to be found between maternal stress and negative aspects in the PPAT.Significant correlations were expected to be found between the mothers’ assessments of the children’s degree of exposure to events of political and negative aspects in the PPAT.The PPAT drawing’s narrative focus was expected to be less on the picking script in comparison to a sample of preschoolers in the same age group who live in a non-war zone . In addi156 preschool children  who were recruited from randomly selected Israeli kindergartens located in an area affected by chronic political violence. As described in A brief behavioral screening questionnaire assessing children’s (age 3–16 years) mental health, and social functioning. The questionnaire was translated to about 40 languages. The 25 items measure 5 scales: emotional symptoms, e.g., “Many fears, easily scared;” behavioral problems, e.g., “Often lies, and cheats;” hyperactivity/inattention, e.g., “Restless, overactive, cannot stay still for long;” peer relationship problems, e.g., “Rather solitary, tends to play alone;” and prosocial behaviors, e.g., “Considerate of other people’s feelings.” The items are coded on a three point scale: 0 = Not true, 1—Somewhat true, and 2 = Certainly true. The item’s score is calculated according to the online SDQ manual. In an extensive study of the psychometric characteristics of this tool, the measure was validated with DSM-IV diagnoses, and the five subscales were found as having a sufficient internal consistency (of 0.73) . In the An 18-item self-report questionnaire on psychological distress that was experienced in the previous week. The items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0  to 4 (extremely). In the present study we used Canetti, et al.  in its HThe questionnaire included 7 items (yes/no answers) that refer to missile attacks and exposure to political violence , and two items that refer to nonpolitical trauma . The sum of the total scores of political violence categories was used for further analysis.Five Scales of the BRIEF Questionnaire , for AssN = never, S = Sometimes, O = Often). The five scales that teachers evaluated included: initiating ; planning and organizing ; monitoring ; working memory ; and emotional control . The scales have high internal consistency (Cronbach = 0.90–0.93) and validity (p < 0.001) )Children’s difficulties, as assessed by teachers and mothers, were inversely associated with the PPAT drawing’s main factors; specifically, as much as the child coped with cognitive and emotional problems, the less generous the drawn tree was, and the less realistic the drawing. EF difficulties were also found to be associated with a less active drawn person, and a less vivid drawing. The present study used a regression model for calculating the explained variance of the PPAT drawings by cognitive and emotional child’s variables. Findings show that the children’s cognitive difficulties and their self-potency experiences explain only about 30% of the variance of the As-Real-R and the Tree Generosity factors. This indicates that there are additional aspects—not measured in the current study—that may explain the variances of these drawing, for example, creativeness; motivation; cognitive abilities; social abilities; and environmental variables, such as art, education, and more.In summary, these results may be described as a parallel-track visual communication pattern, in which children express their personal strengths through positive form and content aspects of the drawing, and express difficulties through negative form, content and narrative aspects of the drawing. This pattern was found in many studies that showed that positive visual drawing elements were associated with child’s strengths and abilities, and negative visual drawing element were associated with children’s emotional difficulties e.g., ,72,73). ,73. 72,7The present study, however, also identified an inverse pattern, where negative child/maternal variables were associated with positive expressions in the PPAT drawings. These may be understood as hope expressions, correcting or compensating efforts, and/or wish fulfillments representations in the face of experiences of adversity and helplessness. In this pattern, we found gender to be an intervening variable. Specifically, the more the mother reported feeling depressed, the more her son tended to draw a more generous tree, and the higher the exposure of the daughter to events of political violence according to the mother, the more the daughter drew a more active person, a more generous tree, and a more realistic drawing. Psychoanalytic theory perceives compensating expressions/behaviors—for example, the phenomenon of an imaginary friend that functions as a buffer against loneliness—as non-adaptive; moreover, when the child relates to the imaginary friend in a concrete way, it also prevents him/her from establishing real relationships . In the The present study’s findings—that of a parallel-track communication pattern reflecting child’s difficulties and strengths through negative and positive aspects in their drawings versus compensating positive expressions despite experiences of deficit and stress—may demonstrate the complex nature of the individual’s drawing as it relates to multiple and sometimes contradictory phenomena. These findings may also reinforce McGrath & Carroll’s  tenet thThe present study’s sample size was 156 children, however teachers and mothers’ compliance rates were low, so sample size was reduced when calculating some of the associations and regression tests. We thus recommend conducting this research with a larger sample size, and in particularly, to examine the gender differences that were found in the current study. Secondly, we did not measure paternal variables, and this may be a limitation due to the fact that both parents affect the way children function in many areas. Another limitation is that we did not measure child’s behavior factors in times of stressful events, for example behavior of comfort-seeking was found as associated with child’s better functioning in a war-zone . This arRegarding clinical implications, the present study makes three main contributions. The first is the ability of PPAT drawing to communicate issues of self-potency, particular drawings that lack the picking narrative. The second is the potential to gain insight about children by observing the narrative of their PPAT drawings. In cases of a missing picking narrative or the presence of a rival narrative, the clinician should ask herself/himself: What is going on? Why is the drawing incomplete? What is the meaning of the absence of an element? What is the meaning of the additional predominant narrative? Thus, the narrative focus may serve as a source of questions and associations for the clinician, as part of her/his effort to better understand the child. The third contribution is addressed towards the psychotherapist who works with children’s drawings. The findings which reveal the presence of a parallel-track communication pattern, along with compensating and/or hope expression pattern, demonstrate that each drawing may be the individual child’s idiosyncratic expression. This means that in our endeavor to understand the messages the child communicates through his/her drawing, we need to carefully observe each nuance in the drawing, whether it is in the form or content layers, and determine if it illustrates a positive aspect reflecting the child’s strengths or a compensating or hope expression in the face of adversity. During the therapeutic process, after the child draws the PPAT drawing, the clinician may ask questions or even invite the child in a playful manner to draw, for example: “What happened next?”; “what happened before?”. These questions/invitations may serve as therapeutic interventions in the case of a picking narrative that is lacking, or the depiction of a passive figure, and may thus enliven the narrative and encourage the child’s expressions of self-potency.The present study shows that the PPAT drawings of preschool children who live in area of persistent political violence convey the children’s strengths and difficulties through layers of form, content, and narrative. The narrative focus’s analysis of these drawings revealed that these children express much more either competing narratives and either the absence of a picking script, than children who live in a non-war zone. These specific narratives may be interpreted as a call for further attention to the child’s self-potency and unique needs as they may arise in the context of the ‘background of the uncanny’ . The ass


Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a peripheral neuropathy of the upper extremity, characterized by pain, loss of strength, and decreased fine motor function. This study describes the experiences of women with CTS who received non-surgical treatments. A qualitative phenomenological study was undertaken. Purposive sampling was used. Women with clinical and electromyographic diagnoses of CTS were included. Eighteen in-depth interviews were conducted among women with CTS, and field notes were kept. The Giorgi’s approach was used for qualitative analysis of the data collected. Five themes emerged: (a) Seeking help and waiting for a diagnosis, (b) trying non-surgical therapeutic options, (c) avoiding invasive options, (d) treatment expectations, and (e) relationships with clinicians. The women described how diagnoses were delayed because women delay seeking help and referrals to medical specialists. Women avoid surgical options and prefer to opt for more conservative approaches, such as splinting or physical therapy. The main reason for avoiding surgical treatment is the fear of limitations and that surgery will not fully eliminate the symptoms. Conflicts may arise in the relationship with the clinician, and they demand to be able to participate in the decision-making process. Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a peripheral neuropathy of the upper extremity, representing 90% of all neuropathies . Spain hThe clinical presentation of CTS is characterized by pain, paresthesia in the areas of nerve innervation with worsening at night, atrophy of the thenar eminence muscles (in severe cases), loss of strength, and decreased fine motor coordination . Women aThree stages of evolution are described, depending on the severity of the symptoms. . In the Based on the intensity and/or severity of symptoms, treatment can be conservative  or surgical. Surgical treatment has high healthcare costs, influencing the degree of satisfaction with the care received . FernándQualitative studies conducted in patients with CTS have described (a) their experiences in relation to their improvements and side effects following treatments received , (b) theA qualitative phenomenological study ,16 basedSix researchers (50% women) participated in this study, including one research nurse (DPC), and five physical therapists. All researchers had experience in research in health sciences and none had any care relationship with the patients at the time of the study. The investigators had prolonged engagement with the study setting and participants during data collection and analysis.Patients with CTS attending the Neurology Departments of Hospital Universitario Fundación Alcorcón were recruited between November 2019 and February 2021. Participants were identified and recruited from the neurology service consultation. The patients chose not to have surgery and came to a physical therapy practice seeking clinical support and alternative treatments. In phenomenological studies, it is common to include participants based on purposive sampling ,19. PurpThe study included females aged 18–65 years old, who did not receive previous surgical treatments and were diagnosed with CTS according to clinical and electromyographic criteria. The clinical criteria included paresthesia and/or pain in the territory innervated by the median nerve, positive Tinel’s test, and Phalen’s test . ElectroBased on the phenomenological design, first person data collection tools (unstructured and semi-structured interviews) and researcher field notes were used simultaneously ,19. The During the interviews, researchers used prompts for clarifications (paraphrasing something that the participant had said) and to encourage the participant to provide further details (‘Can you tell me a bit more about that?’). This enabled relevant information to be collected from the participants’ perspectives.n = 18) were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim, recording a total of 484 min of interviews. Additionally, 18 field notes were collected by the researchers during interviews since field notes provide a rich source of information, i.e., participants describe their personal experiences, their behaviors during data collection, and enable their reflections to be noted concerning methodological aspects of the data collection  so I could sleep. But with my pay roll, I don’t have enough to cover my daily needs, so I haven’t been able to buy them.”.(P12)On other occasions, the use of splints was delayed because the women preferred to try other treatment alternatives, such as physiotherapy. Instead of the splint, a soft wrist bandage, a bandage, or Kinesio taping, were used in the presence of pain or when the women wanted to make their problems visible at work or within the family. Our participants reported that being perceived as patients was important to them and influenced their acceptance of different treatments:“… there have been days when I didn’t need to wear the wristband and I have worn I all the same, so that people are aware that I can’t do all the things I did before…”.(P1)Physiotherapy was the most common private option because it was the most accessible option in their neighborhoods and surroundings. On a few occasions, the physician prescribed physiotherapy services in the public health system. In these cases, a limited range of techniques were applied, causing participants to feel that the full potential of physical therapy was not being used to solve their problems. Physiotherapy treatments included strengthening exercises, stretching exercises, electric currents, and manual therapy.Among the pharmacological options, they were prescribed analgesics, anti-inflammatory drugs, and, on a few occasions, vitamins. The majority reported little or no improvement with medication. Many of our participants complained about the lack of specific and alternative medical treatments, when their severity was not great enough to undergo surgery. They felt as if they were up against the wall, torn between either accepting surgical treatment or accepting medical treatment that did not resolve their symptoms:“…the options are very limited, surgery if you are sick, and if you are not very sick, to put up with it and wait for it to get worse. He didn’t tell me anything specific.”.(P4)The reasons given by our participants for limiting options that were considered invasive, such as infiltrations, surgery, and the use of drugs, are described. These reasons were based on their personal needs, fears, and previous negative experiences. In addition, the participants claimed that the opinions and information from their social environments  influenced their decisions.Our participants declined and avoided invasive measures, such as infiltrations and surgery. The reason they avoided infiltrations was because of pain. They refused to accept them in order to eliminate their CTS pain; they had to undergo more pain during treatment administration (infiltrations):“… If the pain becomes more acute, they will do infiltrations that will give me more pain. Obviously, I want to avoid them.”.(P17)On other occasions, they followed the recommendations of third parties in their environments who advised them to avoid infiltrations because they were not “good”. In these cases, the participants acknowledged that trust in these people  was very important to them:“…I go to a private physio to avoid another infiltration because I was told they were not good... I do not know very well why they are not good for, but I did not infiltrate again.”.(P1)All participants categorically rejected surgery. They explained that they did not want to undergo surgery and sought to delay it for as long as possible. Fear was an important factor; fear of going into the operating room, fear of losing autonomy and depending on their family and friends, fear of losing their jobs, and fear of having to be re-intervened at some point down the road. They also reported other fears regarding post-surgical recovery times, or being away from family and having no one to turn to or ask for help:“…I am afraid. My daughters depend on me a lot, because of my job. When I have the operation, I won’t be able to rest to recover, I will have to go back to work.”.(P14)Moreover, surgery was perceived as a risk in itself—a risk that should be left as a last therapeutic resource. The participants described how they preferred to exhaust all possible therapeutic options before surgery. Some women pointed out that the lack of information about surgery, the reasons for its application, possible consequences, and prognoses made them feel distrustful about this option.Finally, in CTS, the consumption of medications was perceived as unwarranted because they had no clear effect, and they did not have curative effects on the disease:“… the pills cure one thing and spoil four things, so it’ s best to avoid them, […] they give it to you because of course it will give you some relief, but it’ s not advisable.”.(P6)For our participants, a good treatment outcome was associated with a reduction of pain, or pain disappearing, avoiding surgery, improving the functionality of their hands in activities, such as writing, picking up objects, performing their work normally, resting, being able to sleep, and adopting body positions  where they could put weight in their hands without pain:“…to have a good quality working life, because I work a lot with my hands, having strength in my hands is important to me, because I have to use them a lot.”.(P8)“…To sleep through the night, that’s my greatest luxury in life which was taken away from me because of the carpal tunnel problem.”.(P16)Moreover, a good outcome meant not being dependent on anyone when it came to performing their daily living and work activities and becoming completely independent again. Our participants reported that maintaining their autonomy in relation to child and family care was a key expectation for them.Conversely, a poor outcome was associated with pain, symptoms remaining or returning after a temporary improvement, medical services forgetting about them, not being able to apply any other therapeutic options, or having to undergo surgery:“…the worst thing would be for the pain to increase, for it to increase and for them to forget about me.”.(P9)“…when they offer you surgery, they don’t guarantee that they are going to take away the pain. That’s the bad thing, that they can’t give you any further treatment, and you continue to have pain for the rest of your life.”.(P18)Most of the participants pointed out the difficulty of finding a single professional who was able to offer therapeutic options that would meet all of their expectations.Most of the participants pointed out that when they asked for more information from primary care doctors and specialists regarding the possible origin of CTS, measures to prevent its worsening, and/or progression, they were not provided with any concrete information because the injury could no longer be prevented.Sometimes, conflicts with doctors arose when participants demanded medical reports to be presented to the company’s occupational risk services, to request a work adaptation due to the CTS or sick leave:“… he wouldn’t even give me a written piece of paper with what happened to me. And I need it because I must take it to the company. If I leave because I can’t stand the pain anymore, the company must know that it’ s been painful for a long time.”.(P1)Our participants highlighted that they had no role in the decision making or in the possibility of being offered more therapeutic options. The doctors had already made the decisions beforehand. The decision was always made without any option to change:“…The doctor hasn’t even suggested that I do exercises or go to a physiotherapist. Nobody gives you options, well yes, one, the usual one, surgery, and they have already decided for you.”.(P2)Our participants narrated that factors that affected their relationships with their clinician included failure to listen to the patient’s needs/questions, limiting the choice of treatment to only two options (accepting or refusing surgery), not giving other non-surgical treatment possibilities, lack of time during the specialist’s consultation, and not giving the patient time or the option to ask questions:“…The doctor who examined me did not listen to me. She just wanted me to tell her if I was going to have surgery or not. When I told her no, she told me that I was therefore opting out of the operation, that I should inform the primary care medical doctor and that if the clinical situation worsened, I should come back”.(P1)Our results show that participants first seek help from the primary care medical doctor, and this is where the referral to the specialist is made. Schwartz et al.  describeIn relation to other treatments, such as the use of drugs, Arcury et al.  noted thOur results show how the participants rejected the application of infiltration. Nonetheless, infiltration is a useful alternative when conservative treatments fail, or when the surgical option is not desired . AdditioWe found that the use of a splint comes from a medical prescription or without a prescription, on the advice of a third party. Immobilization with prefabricated rigid splints, generally used at night, is the most frequent initial conservative treatment prescribed to patients with CTS ,28. The Our participants rejected surgery because of fear of different factors, such as incomplete functional recovery, remission of symptoms, or loss of autonomy. Mansilla et al.  describeRegarding the doctor–patient relationship, Belasen et al.  reportedOur participants narrated that they were not offered recommendations, or other options, such as physical therapy. Gong et al.  describeFinally, the authors of the current study believed that the female experience regarding CTS is relevant because situations of gender inequality may exist regarding the distribution of roles in the home, childcare, and household chores and affect women’s health. Jonsson et al.  describeThe strength of the present study is that it presents results on a topic that has been scarcely studied to date. Among the limitations, the results cannot be extrapolated due to the nature of the design. Secondly, the present study has included 18 participants, and 18 interviews have been performed. Previous qualitative studies ,19,33 deOur results show how a group of women with CTS experienced the process of diagnosis, the choice of non-surgical treatment, and their relationships with healthcare clinicians. These results can help rehabilitation professionals to understand the needs of women with CTS when prescribing different types of treatments and establishing therapeutic relationships.