KEYNOTE PAPER: Helping Professionals And The Recovery Process From Severe Mental Illness

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By May 27, 2015 No Comments

Authors: Alain Topor, Sweden

Year: 2010

Event: 2010 TheMHS Conference

Subject:

Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers

ISBN: 9780975765364

Abstract: Recovery research shows that: (1) the majority of people given a diagnosis of severe mental illness (SMI) recover; (2) the incidence of recovery appears to have been constant throughout the last century; (3) the probability of recovering appears to be greater in developing countries than in industrialized ones; and (4) no specific treatment has been found to be associated with a better outcome. From this knowledge it is possible to formulate several propositions: (5) recovery is not a professional technique, but rather an everyday practice of consumers; and (6) recovery is both an individual and a social process.

Knowledge gained from studies of recovery and common factors of the recovery process point at the importance of the quality of the reciprocal relationship between the consumer and one or a few staff members. This quality does not depend on the professional's formal competence nor on the consumer's diagnosis. The questions that now need to be answered are: (7) What can help us to understand the social dynamics of the recovery process? and (8) How do consumers formulate their knowledge concerning helping professionals?A crucial problem is that helping professionals often put their relationship with the consumer before the rules and regulations of the institution where they work.

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