The Evolution of Self-Determination for People with Psychotic Disorders

ABSTRACT

The history of the recovery movement began with a pushback against treatment, and the philosophies that it was founded upon still have relevant applications to contemporary social work practice. Financial aspects of service provision for people with serious mental illnesses have enabled other actors in the medical model of psychosis treatment to benefit, while disempowering and dehumanizing the consumers of those services. Since then, other movements like Psychopolitics and the Mad Movement have helped empower psychosis survivors to advocate for their right to self-determination amid the epistemological pressure to identify as disabled. Social workers would like to believe that the field has moved beyond the philosophies that perpetuated institutionalization of people with serious mental illnesses. Contemporary examples, however, reveal how social services in the US maintain the status quo of sanism for psychosis survivors.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychosis
• recovery
• mad movement
• self-determination
• involuntary hospitalization

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patricia R. Turner

Patricia R. Turner is a graduate research assistant and doctoral student at the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. She researches psychosocial approaches to psychosis.