“Technically well, but not really”: carers’ constructions of recovery from psychosis

Abstract

Background: The recovery movement has become highly influential in research and services for people who experience psychosis. However, the precise meaning of recovery from psychosis is contested, and there are concerns that the language of the recovery movement may be co-opted to serve other priorities.

Aims: To investigate carers’ constructions of the meaning of recovery from psychosis.

Method: A qualitative study, using synthetic discursive psychology to analyse transcripts of semi-structured interviews with seven carers recruited from an Early Intervention in Psychosis service, where recovery approaches were practised.

Results: We found medical accounts of recovery to be highly influential used both frequently and as a key reference point, even when describing alternative, non-medical accounts of recovery. Such alternative accounts of recovery in the data were fragementary and participants tended to use such accounts to signal some kind of trouble or disruption.

Conclusions: Explanations of the objectives of recovery approaches cannot escape comparison with a medical repertoire of recovery. Such explanations may benefit from illustration using personal accounts of recovery that contain concrete detail. Creating conditions of safe uncertainty around the meaning of recovery may be an important aim for clinicians and services.

Keywords:

• Recovery
• carers
• psychosis
• discursive psychology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.