The Recovery Approach to Rehabilitation: Implementation in Supervision

Abstract

The recovery approach to psychiatric rehabilitation has introduced a new set of challenges, enabling consumers to set goals and redefine their role in obtaining them. This has revolutionized the management of the relationship between service providers and consumers. In the present paper, we suggest that one of the important ways to supervise professionals interested in internalizing the recovery approach is to implement its major principles in the supervision work itself. The paper draws on intersubjective therapy concepts and guiding principles, which emphasize the development of the professional–consumer relationship in which the consumers' sense of agency can be respected and promoted. The principles we suggest here which may underlie supervision are: (1) clients or supervisees, with their own decisions and interests, are at the center of the rehabilitation therapy and supervision; (2) mutuality in the rehabilitative/supervisory relationship and ongoing discussion of the interactants' power and authority; and (3) the promotion of positive and empowering narratives and self-perceptions in the process of rehabilitation/supervision.

Keywords::

• recovery
• intersubjective
• supervision

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hanoch Yerushalmi

Hanoch Yerushalmi, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and serves as the Chair of the Department of Community Mental Health at the University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. He has formerly been the Director of the Student Counseling Center at the Hebrew University in Israel. Address: Department of Community Mental Health, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. [E-mail: [email protected]]

Paul H. Lysaker

Paul H. Lysaker, Ph.D. is a clincal psychologist at the Roudebush VA Medical Center and Professor of Clinical Psychology Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN. Address: Department of Psychiatry, Roudebush VA Medical Center, Indianapolis, IN 4602, USA. [E-mail: [email protected]]