The nature of recovery as lived in everyday experience

Abstract

Background: Recovery in severe mental illness is often seen as an individual process that occurs in mental health settings. Recent research has begun to explore the nature of recovery as a social process. As a further exploration of this issue, this paper examines processes of recovery as they unfold in everyday life, attempting to capture both the simplicity as well as the complexity of the daily life experiences of people in recovery.

Aim: Exploring recovery within the context of the person's everyday life.

Method: Qualitative study, using narrative phenomenological methods, based on interviews with individuals in recovery.

Results: Four areas of everyday life experiences in recovery were identified: (i) having a normal life, (ii) just doing it, (iii) making life easier, and (iv) being good to yourself.

Conclusions: Conceptualizing recovery in severe mental illness within the context of everyday life offers the opportunity to understand mental health problems as an integrated part of people's lives. These findings suggest that recovery unfolds within the context of “normal” environments and activities. As one implication of this study, everyday life expertise should be included in the practitioners' agenda.

Keywords:

• Recovery
• mental health
• everyday life
• adaptation
• narrative