Recovery From Psychiatric Illness

It is only in the past 20 years that the concept of 'recovery' from mental health has been more widely considered and researched. This book is unique in addressing philosophical issues - including conceptual challenges and opportunities - raised by the notion of recovery of people with mental illness.

Focuses on a shift away from traditional clinical preoccupations towards new priorities of supporting the patient.

It is only in the past 20 years that the concept of 'recovery' from mental health has been more widely considered and researched. Before then, it was generally considered that 'stability' was the best that anyone suffering from a mental disorder could hope for. But now it is recognised that, throughout their mental illness, many patients develop new beliefs, feelings, values, attitudes, and ways of dealing with their disorder. The notion of recovery from mental illness is thus rapidly being accepted and is inserting more hope into mainstream psychiatry and other parts of the mental health care system around the world. Yet, in spite of conceptual and other challenges that this notion raises, including a variety of interpretations, there is scarcely any systematic philosophical discussion of it. This book is unique in addressing philosophical issues - including conceptual challenges and opportunities - raised by the notion of recovery of people with mental illness. Such recovery - particularly in relation to serious mental illness such as schizophrenia - is often not about cure and can mean different things to different people. For example, it can mean symptom alleviation, ability to work, or the striving toward mental well-being (with or without symptoms). The book addresses these different meanings and their philosophical grounds, bringing to the fore perspectives of people with mental illness and their families as well as perspectives of philosophers, mental health care providers and researchers, among others. The important new work will contribute to further research, reflective practice and policy making in relation to the recovery of people with mental illness.It is essential reading for philosophers of health, psychiatrists, and other mental care providers, as well as policy makers.

This book offers a succinct model of recovery from serious mental illness, synthesizing stories of lived experience to provide a framework for clinical work and research in the field of recovery. • Places the process of recovery within the context of normal human growth and development • Compares and contrasts concepts of recovery from mental illness with the literature on grief, loss and trauma • Situates recovery within the growing field of positive psychology – focusing on the active, hopeful process • Describes a consumer-oriented, stage-based model of psychological recovery which is unique in its focus on intrapersonal processes

Narratives of Recovery from Mental Illness presents research that challenges the prevailing view that recovery from ‘mental illness’ must take place within the boundaries of traditional mental health services. While Watts and Higgins accept that medical treatment may be a vital start to some people’s recovery, they argue that mental health problems can also be resolved through everyday social interactions, and through peer and community support. Using a narrative approach, this book presents detailed recovery stories of 26 people who received various diagnoses of ‘mental illness’ and were involved in a mutual help group known as ‘GROW’. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of each story, chapters offer new understandings of the journey into mental distress and a progressive entrapment through a combination of events, feelings, thoughts and relationships. The book also discusses the process of ongoing personal liberation and healing which assists recovery, and suggests that friendship, social involvement, compassion, and nurturing processes of change all play key factors in improved mental well-being. This book provides an alternative way of looking at ‘mental illness’ and demonstrates many unexplored avenues and paths to recovery that need to be considered. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, nursing, social work and occupational therapy, as well as to service providers, policymakers and peer support organisations. The narratives of recovery within the book should also be a source of hope to people struggling with ‘mental illness’ and emotional distress

This book takes the lofty vision of "recovery" and of a "life in the community" for every adult with a mental illness promised by the U.S. President's New Freedom Commission and shows the reader what is entailed in making this vision a practical reality for people with mental illnesses and their families.

Winner of Medical Journalists’ Association Specialist Readership Award 2010 Recovery is widely endorsed as a guiding principle of mental health policy. Recovery brings new rules for services, e.g. user involvement and person-centred care, as well as new tools for clinical collaborations, e.g. shared decision making and psychiatric advance directives. These developments are complemented by new proposals regarding more ethically consistent anti-discrimination and involuntary treatment legislation, as well as participatory approaches to evidence-based medicine and policy. Recovery is more than a bottom up movement turned into top down mental health policy in English-speaking countries. Recovery integrates concepts that have evolved internationally over a long time. It brings together major stakeholders and different professional groups in mental health, who share the aspiration to overcome current conceptual reductionism and prognostic negativism in psychiatry. Recovery is the consequence of the achievements of the user movement. Most conceptual considerations and decisions have evolved from collaborations between people with and without a lived experience of mental health problems and the psychiatric service system. Many of the most influential publications have been written by users and ex-users of services and work-groups that have brought together individuals with and without personal experiences as psychiatric patients. In a fresh and comprehensive look, this book covers definitions, concepts and developments as well as consequences for scientific and clinical responsibilities. Information on relevant history, state of the art and transformational efforts in mental health care is complemented by exemplary stories of people who created through their lives and work an evidence base and direction for Recovery. This book was originally published in German. The translation has been fully revised, references have been amended to include the English-language literature and new material has been added to reflect recent developments. It features a Foreword by Helen Glover who relates how there is more to recovery than the absence or presence of symptoms and how health care professionals should embrace the growing evidence that people can reclaim their lives and often thrive beyond the experience of a mental illness. Comments on German edition: "It is fully packed with useful information for practitioners, is written in jargon free language and has a good reading pace." Theodor Itten, St. Gallen, Switzerland and Hamburg, Germany "This book is amazingly positive. It not only talks about hope, it creates hope. Its therapeutic effects reach professional mental health workers, service users, and carers alike. Fleet-footed and easily understandable, at times it reads like a suspense novel." Andreas Knuf, pro mente sana, Switzerland '"This is the future of psychiatry"' cheered a usually service-oriented manager after reading the book. We might not live to see it.' Ilse Eichenbrenner, Soziale Psychiatrie, Germany