When we think about the word recovery, most of us think about ‘getting better’. However, in mental health, recovery is a journey towards a meaningful and fulfilling life, achieving a sense of wellbeing. It’s personal and unique to each person, everyone will progress at different speeds, in different directions and to different destinations.
This short course explores what personal recovery is. This course will take approximately 20 minutes to complete, but this timing will depend on how fast you read.
‘Recovery is not one and done. It is a lifelong journey that takes place one day, one step at a time.’
In mental health, recovery is a journey towards a meaningful and fulfilling life, and achieving a sense of wellbeing. It’s personal and unique to each person, everyone will progress at different speeds, in different directions and to different destinations. We will all make sense of our own experiences in our own way.
It’s not about ‘getting back to normal’, after all, what is ‘normal’? And it’s not always about ‘symptoms’ being dealt with, or “getting better”. Many people continue to experience things that are described as experiences that are commonly associated with mental health issues, whilst having a satisfying life.
For example, periods of low mood or hearing voices. It has often been assumed that people who have been diagnosed with a mental health difficulty are not capable of managing their own lives or deciding what they want for the future, but this is not true. It is also untrue that anyone can decide what another person’s recovery means.
No-one knows us like we know ourselves, so it is up to us how we want our lives to be. We may need some support and guidance on our journeys, but we know where we want to go.
Personal Recovery Stories
Below is a students’ recovery story that helps to show how beneficial learning about recovery has been in allowing this individual to move forward with their life and still achieve what they would like to.
‘At the time it was the summer holidays. I wasn’t occupying my time positively. I was dwelling on past mistakes, putting myself down and getting into a depressive state. It’s like I was trying to fight off the thoughts of suicide and depression with the usual techniques; Xbox, T.V, distraction, but eventually they didn’t work anymore.
Then I remembered the Recovery: The New Me course and the CHIME factors and while I was looking through some notes on them I found the Spirituality Flower as well. So I was using the CHIME factors as a positive thing to focus on in that precise moment, though I struggled with ‘hope’ due to the depression.
This helped for quite a while, but then I started to reinforce it with the Spirituality Flower, using it as a daily activity. I would read through all the petals and pick one that stuck out that day, for example meaning, so I would try to do something meaningful that day; clean the house, have a bath, go to the beach, take a moment to be aware of my surroundings.
This kept me going. It was a bit like the story of David and Goliath. I was David with the slingshot. The CHIME factors and the Spirituality Flower were my ammo, instead of drugs. Goliath was the depressive state. This enabled me to draw on everything I had learned at college.’ Anonymous.
TEDx talk on Recovery
In the following TEDx talk Maddie discusses her own mental health recovery journey and the benefit that other people can have during this time, specificallyfocusing on the impact that her friend Hallie had on her.
She discusses throughout the video the difference between what we need and what we want to need and why this is important in Recovery.
(Please note, in this video Maddie discusses therapy that she received for eating related issues and talks about and often references the death of her friend who she met during this time).
For more information about personal recovery, visit the sites below: Link to Mind’s information on recovery.
Mental health problems an introduction (Mind.org.uk) Rethink Mental Illness.
Relationships are a massive part of my recovery (soundcloud.com)
Interested in where this recovery information comes from?
A literature review (Leamy et al, 2011) collated over 5000 pieces of research and identified 97 papers to include in their review. They attempted to examine trends in the recovery process of individuals who have experienced mental health difficulties.
This is the foundation of our work and developments around recovery because it has been supported and built upon by many individuals with lived experience as having a positive impact on their lives.
The courses offered here are based on this as well as using a co-production method to develop materials from both the clinicians and individuals with lived experience perspectives.
Working together we have built courses that aim to:
- Provide opportunities for self-exploration and improved wellbeing.
- Educate and build upon the vast amount of scientific research and experiential knowledge we currently have.
- See experiences as personal to each individual by allowing them to make sense of their experiences in their own way.
This research highlighted recovery themes that are prevalent across the mental health research. After examining over 5000 papers they used inclusion and exclusion criteria, below, to determine which papers were relevant and robust enough to be included. They were specifically looking for research that explicitly described or developed a conceptualisation of personal recovery from mental health difficulties.
Inclusion Criteria
- Contains a conceptualisation of personal recovery from which a succinct summary could be extracted.
- Presented an original model or framework of recovery.
- Was based on either secondary research synthesising the available literature or primary research involving quantitative or qualitative data based on at least three participants.
- Was available in printed or downloadable form.
- Was available in English.
Exclusion criteria:
- Studies solely focusing on clinical recovery (i.e. using a predefined and invariant ‘getting back to normal’ definition of recovery through symptom remission and restoration of functioning).
- Studies involving modelling of predictors of clinical recovery.
- Studies defining remission criteria or recovery from substance misuse, addiction or eating disorders.
- Dissertations and doctoral theses (because of availability).
Definition of personal recovery
Our definition of personal recovery is demonstrated in the thirteen characteristics of the recovery journey identified in this research, listed below. This list goes to show that recovery is different for each of us and can come about in a variety of ways.
- Recovery is an active process
- Individual and unique process
- Non-linear process
- Recovery as a journey
- Recovery as stages or phases
- Recovery as a struggle
- Multidimensional process
- Recovery is a gradual process
- Recovery as a life-changing experience
- Recovery without cure
- Recovery is aided by supportive and healing environment
- Recovery can occur without professional intervention
- Trial and error process.
The CHIME Factors
From this the authors mapped recovery processes and found that the CHIME factors were prevalent across the research. The descriptions of the processes involved in each factor is shown below. For more information about the CHIME factors go to the Introduction to CHIME topic which you can find in the Introduction to Recovery course page.