An understanding of recovery as a personal and subjective experience has emerged within mental health systems. This meaning of recovery now underpins mental health policy in many countries. Developing a focus on this type of recovery will involve transformation within mental health systems. Human systems do not easily transform. In this paper, we identify seven mis-uses ("abuses") of the concept of recovery: recovery is the latest model; recovery does not apply to "my" patients; services can make people recover through effective treatment; compulsory detention and treatment aid recovery; a recovery orientation means closing services; recovery is about making people independent and normal; and contributing to society happens only after the person is recovered. We then identify ten empirically-validated interventions which support recovery, by targeting key recovery processes of connectedness, hope, identity, meaning and empowerment (the CHIME framework). The ten interventions are peer support workers, advance directives, wellness recovery action planning, illness management and recovery, REFOCUS, strengths model, recovery colleges or recovery education programs, individual placement and support, supported housing, and mental health trialogues. Finally, three scientific challenges are identified: broadening cultural understandings of recovery, implementing organizational transformation, and promoting citizenship.

No abstract

Assuming that sufficient political and community support are generated, there can be considerable enthusiasm for the expansion of peer support around the globe. Peer leaders are encouraged, however, to develop and deliver peer support both with integrity to its founding values in a civil rights and social justice framework and with responsiveness to local cultural worldviews.

Abstract:Background: For the past three decades, mental health practitioners have increasingly adopted aspects and tools of strengths-based approaches. To provide strengths-based intervention and to amplify strengths relies heavily on effective interpersonal processes.Aim: This paper is a critical review of research regarding the use of strengths-based approaches in mental health service settings. The aim is to discuss strengths-based interventions within broader research on recovery, focusing on effectiveness and advances in practice where applicable.Method: A systematic search for peer-reviewed intervention studies published between 2001 and December 2014 yielded 55 articles of potential relevance to the review.Results: Seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. The Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies was used to appraise the quality of the studies. Our review found emerging evidence that the utilisation of a strengths-based approach improves outcomes including hospitalisation rates, employment/educational attainment, and intrapersonal outcomes such as self-efficacy and sense of hope.Conclusions: Recent studies confirm the feasibility of implementing a highfidelity strengths-based approach in clinical settings and its relevance for practitioners in healthcare. More high quality studies are needed to further examine the effectiveness of strengths-based approaches.https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijspsych International Journal of Social Psychiatry 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 AbstractBackground: For the past three decades, mental health practitioners have increasingly adopted aspects and tools of strengths-based approaches. To provide strengths-based intervention and to amplify strengths relies heavily on effective interpersonal processes.Aim: This paper is a critical review of research regarding the use of strengths-based approaches in mental health service settings. The aim is to discuss strengths-based interventions within broader research on recovery, focusing on effectiveness and advances in practice where applicable. Results: Seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. The Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies was used to appraise the quality of the studies. Our review found emerging evidence that the utilisation of a strengths-based approach improves outcomes including hospitalisation rates, employment/educational attainment, and intrapersonal outcomes such as self-efficacy and sense of hope. Conclusions:Recent studies confirm the feasibility of implementing a high-fidelity strengths-based approach in...

The leadership of people with lived experience of mental health problems is underdeveloped, when it comes to leadership in one's own recovery, at the service level, and at the systemic level. Unlike the mental health system, the user/survivor movement has a values base of empowerment and equality. But the movement has not yet created an explicit model of leadership based on these values. Conventional models of leadership have little to offer but critiques of it provide a good framework for users and survivors to build its own model of leadership upon. If user/survivor leadership is to thrive, new roles, practices and competencies need to be developed. At a deeper level there needs to be philosophical, psychological and political shifts in service systems if user/survivor leadership is to ever take root. Furthermore, the leadership of empowerment and equality should pervade all the leadership in service systems and beyond.