Abstract
The concept of recovery in psychosis has gained much momentum in recent years in the UK. Current government policy describes its underpinning philosophy as the way forward for mental health services. Many mental health professionals now claim to embrace this concept yet fail to make the desired impact upon the care and treatment of individuals with schizophrenia. This article reviews some of the literature and explores what the concept of recovery means. The formal evidence will be augmented with personal accounts about recovery written by individuals who have schizophrenia. In doing so the main components that appear to have influenced the recovery process will be highlighted, and the implications for mental health nurses and practitioners will be discussed.
Whilst it’s important to try to help people to ‘recover’ I have reservations about the recovery agenda.
These centre round the tendency to overlook the fact that by whatever sensible definition used some people will not “recover” and to reduce a lot of support to time limited interventions.
Within seeing recovery as an optimum outcome of treatment, and working towards it ,there needs to be a mental health service that is geared to providing long term support for those who will not ‘recover’.
Yes I read it. It seemed to set recovery at a much lower threshold than the more traditionalist idea of recovery. Whether that is a good thing I am not sure.
I definitely liked the Being an Individual bit. I personally didn’t respond well to Maintenance. I started feeling better when I decided to figure out how I would deal with my symptoms.
