The Recovery Framework as a Way of Understanding Families' Responses to Mental Illness: Balancing Different Needs and Recovery Journeys

Abstract

Personal recovery is a guiding principle in mental health and suggests that consumers own and are responsible for their own recovery. An exclusive focus on the recovery of those living with mental illness challenges the relevance of recovery concepts to families’ experiences. This paper extends these recovery principles to consider if the recovery framework is helpful in understanding families’ experiences. We distinguished the family's recovery task by recovery-oriented support and the family's own recovery journey. By applying recovery frameworks developed by Davidson et al. and Leamy et al. to these two tasks, we were able to highlight similarities and points of tension between consumer and family recovery tasks. The tasks for families include: (1) maintaining hope; (2) reconnecting; (3) overcoming secondary trauma; and (4) journeying from carer to family. Family response to mental illness is a dynamic, multilayered process rather than a static and enduring role of caregiving. The recovery framework offers an alternative way to understand a family's response to mental illness and suggests possibilities for social work practice with families.

个人康复是心理健康的指导原则，客户自己要对自己的康复负责。对精神病患者本人康复的特别强调，挑战了康复观跟家庭经验的关系。本文将这些康复原则推而广之，思考了康复框架是否有助于理解家庭经验。我们区分了基于康复性支持的家庭康复工作和家庭本身的康复之旅。我们将戴维森等和利姆叶等的康复框架应用于这些工作，强调了相同点以及顾客和家庭康复工作之间的 紧张点。家庭的工作包括：1）保持希望；2）重新接触；3）克服次生创伤；4）从看护者过渡到家人。家庭对精神病的反应不应是一种静态的、总是提供关照的角色，而应是一个动态而多层面的过程。康复框架为理解家庭对精神病的反应提供了一种另类的方式，同时也指出了社会工作同家庭相结合的种种可能。

Keywords:

• Family
• Mental Illness
• Recovery
• Journey