Personal recovery within positive psychiatry

Figures & data

Table 1. A clinical vignette.

Imagine an 18-year-old boy leaving home for the first time and moving to a different city to attend his first year of university. Imagine him dealing with the profound transition of leaving a supportive, or at least familiar environment, of family, friends, and routines, and entering an entirely new setting of people and demands. It might be exciting and stressful to try to make new friends and cope with challenging educational demands. And in the midst of this all, he begins to have unfamiliar experiences, perceptions and/or beliefs that others do not seem to understand. These cause increasing experiences of conflict, tension, and alienation. A sudden event, or a series of events, like those described may lead to distress, confusion, and hinder the young man’s ability to relate or function. This in turn may lead to contact with the mental health system. Experiences may vary, but even under the best of circumstances often include being labeled, medicated, subject to treatments one did not necessarily choose, were imposed, or involved restraint and various degrees of loss of freedom. Then even when things seem to improve on the surface (for example, when symptoms become less severe or resolve), this young man, who until recently lived a normative life, is likely to be subject to stigma. His behavior will be interpreted through the lens of a ‘remission’, which will make him vulnerable to internalizing his mental health label and adapting the only identity that has not yet been ‘stripped’ from him—that of a patient. His life opportunities, to make friends, rent an apartment, and obtain work, are likely to be hindered as long as his label of having experienced and been treated for a psychotic episode is known. An alternative to this unfortunate and common sequence of events is working towards promoting personal recovery. This would take the form of respecting, being curious about and listening to a person’s experience no matter how different it might be from the perspectives of professionals. This alternative entails focusing on a person’s strengths rather than symptoms and narrow treatment goals. This alternative entails focusing on a person’s strengths rather than symptoms and narrow treatment goals.