The Lost Social Context of Recovery Psychiatrization of a Social Process

From being a concept questioning the core of psychiatric knowledge and practice, recovery has been adopted as a guiding vison for mental health policy and practice by different local, national, and international organizations. The aim of this article is to contextualize the different understandings of recovery and its psychiatrization through the emergence of an individualizing and de-contextualized definition which have gained a dominant position. It ends with an attempt to formulate a new definition of recovery which integrates people in their social context. Research results from various follow-up studies showing the possibility of recovery from severe mental distress have stressed the i…

Diversity, complexity and ordinality: Mental health services outside the institutions—service users’ and professionals’ experience-based practices and knowledges, and new public management

Before Recovery - A Blind Spot in Recovery Research?: Users’ Narratives About the Origins and Development of their Mental Health and/or Addiction Problems

Objective: Recently, the position of persons with mental health and drug problems has evolved from victim of an illness to holder of an experience-based knowledge (EBK). Studies about recovery are often based on recovery narratives. However, focusing on components of the recovery process—parts of this EBK concerned with the causes, onset, and journey before the proper recovery process—risks forming a blind spot. In this study, we aim to analyze service users’ EBK about recovery, the backgrounds and causes of the problems, and how they related these conditions to their recovery journey. Research Design and Methods: We interviewed 29 persons in recovery. Data were analyzed by using thematic a…