Adjusting the focus of mental health nursing: Incorporating service users' experiences of recovery

Abstract

Mental health nursing is currently torn by passionate debate about its proper focus and function, with the two dominant 'camps' competing for ascendancy. Although both traditions stress the need to involve service users in their own care, the hegemonic nature of these professional theories tends to relegate the expertise of those who experience mental health problems. This paper considers service users' views and experiences, particularly their accounts of recovery, and finds a place for both approaches. Users also highlight the importance of strategies for social inclusion (facilitating access to roles, responsibilities, relationships and communities) an area of work that has not been prioritised by mental health nurses in either approach. Service users differ from each other and have a range of different roles in different settings. In developing their own strategies for living they need choices, multiple perspectives, a range of approaches and skills. It is not for us to create single models or fixed ways of acting upon them, but for service users to use a range of resources - including the different strategies that nurses make available - in ways most useful to them. In providing the most helpful environment for recovery, mental health nursing theorists must move from competition to cooperation, from criticising others to self-criticism. We must also incorporate strategies for social inclusion, but if we are to promote diversity in communities, we must first embrace diversity in our own area of work.