Two Birds, One Stone: Unintended Consequences and a Potential Solution for Problems With Recovery in Mental Health

Abstract

Recovery began as a social justice movement. In more recent years, professionals have joined the movement, unintentionally co-opting and mainstreaming the more radical goals of these earlier activist consumer movements. The goals of the patient-centered care movement in general medical care are similar to those of "professional recovery." If mental health professionals instead adopted the language and goals of patient-centered care as a first step toward joining the two movements, the recovery movement could reclaim its social justice roots, and progress would be made toward reducing the duality between physical and mental health care systems. Professionals should return the recovery movement to those with lived experience, adopt the unified language of patient-centered care, and align professional transformation efforts under one holistic movement.

Clinician perspectives on recovery and borderline personality disorder

“…The activism associated with these claims asserts that mental health consumers/survivors have different and at times conflicting interests to those of professionals working within mainstream mental health services. Indeed, it has been suggested that the concept of recovery has been “stolen” by policy makers and mental health professionals, denying consumers opportunities for on-going activism or associated reform of the mental health system (Hunt and Resnick, 2015). Furthermore, it has been argued that the mainstreaming of recovery has “manufactured” a smoke screen that obscures the lack of substantive reform (Braslow, 2013).…”

Patient Centered Professionalism? Patient Participation in Mental Health Professional Frameworks

“…Patient involvement in mental health care is rooted in the widespread anti-psychiatry movement in the nineteen seventies (Hunt & Resnick, 2015;Oosterhuis & Gijswijt-Hofstra, 2008;Van Dijkum & Henkelman, 2010). The influence of this movement is still visible in patient organizations nowadays, especially in the plea for patient empowerment, recovery-oriented care, and the direct use of patient experience in mental health care.…”

Vol 6, No 2 (2016) Special Issue: Professional-Citizen Relations

“…Patient involvement in mental health care is rooted in the widespread anti-psychiatry movement in the nineteen seventies (Hunt & Resnick, 2015;Oosterhuis & GijswijtHofstra, 2008;Van Dijkum & Henkelman, 2010). The influence of this movement is still visible in patient organizations nowadays, especially in the plea for patient empowerment, recovery-oriented care, and the direct use of patient experience in mental health care.…”