When asked mental health nurses consistently report relatively high levels of occupational stress. These levels of occupational stress are seen as affecting staff retention and also as creating a barrier to the ongoing programme of improvement in mental health care. Research suggests that the 'critical factors' in nurses' ability to cope with occupational stress are the personality variables that are considered to have consistency over the individual's biographical history and which are commonly described as dispositions or traits. Previous research has argued that the limits implicit in the dominant approach to studying this area (self-report questionnaires) are now restricting understanding of these personality variables and there has been repeated calls for studies to use more sophisticated methods. This study has used a specific method of biographical interviewing to explore the experiences of stress of nurses in two contrasting settings: an acute ward and a therapeutic community, to explore how personal biography impacts upon the experience of ccupational stress for these two groups.