Recovery psychology

NOTICE OF ORIGINAL WORK

This is an original work, please feel free to discuss or participate in editing if you understand the idea. This is the development of a new course in psychology, borrowing from both clinical psychology and what is termed as the "Recovery Movement" in mental health. This is an academic pursuit as well as a piece of sociopolitical activism. This is a very simple concept, it already exists in many various forms although it does not get officially recognized as Recovery Psychology; the basic expression of this concept is Recovery+Psychology=Recovery Psychology.

Recovery in Mental Health: A Brief Introduction

Introduction to the Recovery movement From June 2002 to April 2003 the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health met to discuss how to better treat mental illness. It was determined that all mental health services needed to be recovery oriented. Mental Health Commision It is the work of professional psychologists | who themselves have recovered from mental illness where the largest body of material on recovery has come from. One can of course google or use other search engines to find SAMHSA intititives or US Department of Health and Human Services not notably the Campaign for Mental Health Recovery (CMHR) See Also The Campaign for Mental Health Reform , BACCHUS Network, peer educator, and Active Minds on Campus Although it may be hard to determine the content online of these intitiatives directly addressing the phenomena of recovery or giving it equal discussion to pathology of mental illness.

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The recovery concept is an idea proposed by ex-patients from psychiatric institutions. They have proposed this idea in response as victims of civil rights abuses. As survivors of psychiatric assualt their testimonials have influenced mental health policies internationally. This have been termed as the recovery movement. It has developed from a number of other movements that happened simultaneously, such as the anti-psychiatry movement, the deinstitutionalization movement and the mental liberation movement. Primarily in the United States this movement has learned from the civil rights movement in the 1960's. However, the recovery movement is not just an American phenomena, it is in Austraila, Canada, England, New Zealand and many other nations throughout the world.

• see Legitimization of the Consumer Movement and Obstacles to It

Clinical Psychology

Clinical psychology has always approached mental illness from the prespective of the medical model of illness. This has led to the view of a person with an illness to be as a set of symptoms not as a person. The recovery model takes in to person-centered values, in its view of the person as a human being. The concept of recovery, oddly enough not being fully accepted is in actuality the fulfillment of any practice of clinical psychology or psychiatry. In the October 2005 issue of the APA Monitor on page 5 of Volume 36, No. 9 the | American Psychological Association (APA) has acknowledged that there is a "recovery model" in the terms of service provision there seems to be a lack of psychology studying the phenomena that is recovery. Although | one source does in fact discuss he process theoretically in the terms of the Kübler-Ross model, which gives a foundation of psychological theorieum to use in studying this process, to simply say that recovery is a process, then to proceed in to speaking of rehabilitation services and rehabilitation outcomes is simply an error is known in literature as a smear fallacy {check name of fallacy} William Anthony in 1991 wrote Basic Assumptions of Recovery Oriented Mental Health System and listed as the very first assumption is that people can or sometimes do recover from mental illness with absolutely no professional intervention (see above mentioned smear fallacy). Every one who is proponent of recovery seems to discuss what it is or like to over-speculate, over-fathom or over-intellectualize what recovery is. Hippocrates is seen by the western civilization as the father of all medicine, when one reads the Hippocratic Oath does it not just scream out the recovery concept? What other intention for a helping practice could their ever have been? Recovery is nothing new, it has always been around in the past the mental health system has hid those who recovered-Pricilla Ridgway. It seems to be a common expression that "that person needs help" is used when a psychiatriclly niave person is talking about a person whose behavior is perceived to be different, deviant or abnormal. However, the taking of psychopharmacueticals and recieving disability funds from social security falls short of being true "help." The concept of "recovery" would seem to be implied by the psychiatrically niave person when they are stating that a person needs "help." There is an obvious connection betweenpsychology and psychiatryalthough some psychiatrists might deny it.

See also

• Psychiatry vs. Psychology
• University of Toledo
• Psych Services
• Northern Virginia
• Toledo Doc
• Medical College of Georgia
• Dr Levant

Syllabus on Recovery in a Psychological context

The following will suggest and describe all the available resources necessary to learn about the recovery concept, with an explanation on how such materials relate to psychology. Then will do the same in referring from Clinical Psychology, Sociology, Social Psychology, alternative or radical psychology and other such disciplines. This is based on the philosophical arguement on the concept of transforming the mental health system in to a recovery based mental health system [1][2][3] [4] is a noble concept, but why not address the mental health at it's roots (Clinical Psychology courses which are taught in the colleges? The fact remains that there is a very big connection between psychology and the mental health system, for one to fail to acknowledge this, would be obviously a serious case of denial. One could use search engines to research Mental Health Recovery using keywords related to recovery, although a few mentions in APA Journals here and there, which are vague and only speak of service models, service delivery and corporate policies there would be little in the psychological context. Psychiatric rehabilitation or Psychosocial rehabilitation may discuss recovery in a service delivery, social work or such like context and again not in a psychological context, although prehaps from a humanistic psychology approach. It is still hard to find information published on recovery in the clinical context, it seems as though people need to forsake one to even discuss the other, as if to say that the practices are not complimentary. Many psychologists that do recognize mental health recovery still do not see the full body of discussion on "recovery" outweighing or triumpithing that body of discussion on "pathology." The idea of clinical psychology being seperate from a the concept of recovery is a fallacy known Reductio ad absurdum. The mistake in the reasoning of clinical psychology is it's purpose, if it is not 100% about recovery. The idea that people scramble to come up with a definition of recovery is also strange since "clinics" have no right to exist without recovery, nor do doctors or the medical establishment...this is prehaps why there is such a strong anti-psychiatric sentiment in the modern era.

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Lessons

• Lesson One Mental Illness-sociological
• Lesson Two Mental Illness-psychological
• Lesson Three Recovery?
• Lesson Four Stigma, Discrimination and Prejudice
• Lesson Five Psychosocial Rehabilitation
• Lesson Six Biological Theory
• Lesson Seven Moral Development of the mental health profession
• Lesson Eight Self-help
• Lesson Nine Quality of Life
• Lesson Ten Holistic therapy
• Course Summary

Suggested Reading Offline

• Abnormal Psychology: The Human Expeirience of psychological disorders(2007) Susan Krauss Whitbourne and Richard Halgin Chapter one
• Coping with voices: Self help strategies for people who hear voices that are distressing (1995)Patricia E. Deegan
• Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health (2006) Carol S. Aneshensel and Jo C. Phelan
• In Recovery: The Making of Mental Health Policy (2004) Nora Jacobson
• On Our Own, Together: Peer Programs for People with Mental Illness (2005) Sally Clay
• The Power of Procovery in Healing Mental Illness: Just Start Anywhere (2000) Kathleen Crowley and William Anthony
• Psychiatric Rehabilitation (2002) Carlos Pratt, Kenneth J. Gill, Nora M. Barrett, Melissa M. Roberts
• Psychological and Social Aspects of Psychiatric Disability(1997) LeRoy J. Spaniol, Cheryl Gagne, Martin Koehler
• Recovery and Wellness: Models of Hope and Empowerment for People With Mental Illness (2001) Catana E. Brown
• Recovery, rehabilitation and the conspiracy of hope: A keynote address (1992) Patricia Deegan
• Social Work in Mental Health: Trends and Issues (1997) Uri Aviram

And More Online

• New Federal Prespective Recovery, Now!
• Mental Health Recovery Newsletter Volume 7.2

Qoutes that summarizes Recovery Psychology from the Recovery Movement

"Recovery is for everyone"-Daniel Fisher

• In the recovery literature there is the statement that, it is not just a person with mental illness who recovers, but family members of a person in recovery, the mental health care system and society as well that recovers.
• The question that arises here is: How does this impact academic instructors and college students who study the subjects more commonly known as Abnormal Psychology and Clinical Psychology?
• What about the need for Mental Health? How many millions of self-help books are sold every year in book stores? Does reading self-help books mean a person has issues? Is having issues different from having a mental illness? Daniel Fisher spoke at a conference once that persons diagnosed with mental illness were like the canary in a coal mine. He made this analogy to the status of human relationships in modern society. That the first warning sign is often when the canary gets sick, that people in society need to acknowledge the unhealthy attitudes in the environment. Is what he meant by recovery is for everyone?
• See Interview with Pat Deegan where she discusses what others have termed as "pathologically normal" and about trying to be normal when truly nobody is capable of living up to such an expectation.