New Outlook For Mental Health Recovery

At one time a diagnosis of severe mental health (MH) condition such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or schizoaffective disorder meant that an individual was sentenced to a lifetime with a stigma and an etched-in-stone diagnosis. Negative beliefs persisted in healthcare, and socio-culturally, that recovery was virtually impossible.

However, today we know the possibility exists for full recovery from mental illness with the correct approach and guidance. Sufferers have authentic hope in the form of an integrative mind-body-spirit approach to MH recovery. Stories abound on the Internet and elsewhere of people who are winning battles over mental illness.

What is interesting is research from the World Health Organization (WHO)shows that in developing nations around the world, the rate of recovery from severe mental illness (primarily schizophrenia) is twice as high as in Western developed nations! The results of this research is not happenstance - developing cultures take a less technical and less dehumanizing (e.g., lower reliance upon psychotropic drugs and invasive techniques), yet more organic and socially interconnected approach. Perhaps in the West, we are finally beginning to learn lessons from them!

According to Dan Fisher, Founder of the National Empowerment Center (NEC), a national recovery advocacy organization, significant reasons for this success is that developing nations "[are more] socially oriented, and they instinctively recognize the importance of keeping people connected to the community. We have ceremonies of segregation and isolation, which is really what our labeling and hospitalization process is. They have ceremonies of reintegration and connection." (White, 2005)

So, what are the most significant steps for recovery from mental illness? Well, in 2005 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) put forth the following elements of a healthy recovery: self-direction, individualized and person-centered approaches, empowerment, holistic views, non-linearity, strengths-based, peer support, respect, responsibility, and hope. (Kiume, n.d.) And a report from the Wellesley Institute, a health policy organization, titled Mental Health "Recovery": Users and Refusers, states the three main components of a solid recovery plan are symptom management, health and nutrition, and faith(Mental Health "Recovery:.., 2009), a mind-body-spirit oriented approach.

Fisher himself is an inspiring model of recovery from mental illness. He completed full recovery from schizophrenia, now runs the NEC, and is a practicing psychiatrist. In his psychiatry work he does not, however, excessively prescribe psychiatric drugs such as clozapine and haloperidal, yet maintains a central tenet that medications are temporary solutions and not the core component of an integrative recovery. Central tools for recovery Fisher relies upon are forms of cognitive therapy for self-help, recognized as quite powerful when utilized properly, among other integrative modalities.

For local information on mental health recovery in the Greater Boston Area, please visit the Metro Suburban Recovery Learning Center website at www.metrosubrlc.org or the Transformation Center at www.transformation-center.org. Additionally, please visit the National Empowerment Center website at www.power2u.org.


References

Kiume, S. (n.d.) What's Involved With Mental Health Recovery? Retrieved 10 September 2010 from PsychCentral's World of Psychology website:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/05/12/whats-involved-in-mental-health-
recovery/

Mental Health "Recovery" Study Working Group (2009). Mental Health "Recovery"; Users and Refusers, Toronto: Wellesley Institute. Retrieved September 10 2010 from
http://wellesleyinstitute.com/files/Mental_Health%20_Recovery.pdf

White, R. (2005). Empowerment Model of Recovery From Mental Ilness: An Expert
Interview with Daniel B. Fisher, MD, PhD. Medscape Psychiatry and Mental
Health, 10, 1.

Positive Psychology and Schizophrenia

Many people are probably not aware that much of the work on family therapy actually began with research on schizophrenia. According to Nichols et al., researchers felt that the "strange patterns of interaction [in families in which psychosis was present] were so dramatic," if they could understand such an extreme condition, it would likely shed light on so many other less extreme mental health conditions as well. (Nichols, et al., 2007) Ultimately, doing this work, researchers were able to identify patterns in families that were not healthy. Such patterns include extreme conflicting messages such as the "double bind," rigid family roles, faulty parental models of identification, and the "rubber fence." The rubber fence, identified by Wynne, is parental rigidity that limits outside contact for the children. It is particularly ironic because it often occurs in the lives of many children who need outside contact the most, who live in such a toxic family culture.

The study of schizophrenia and family culture has certainly provided significant measure of understanding of disease, of why people get sick. That is one part of the equation. However, the other side of it, e.g., the dangers and consequences of focusing only on disease etiology, is that using this perspective we also tend to blame, label, and diagnose. Doing so, we tend to lose focus of the most important aspects of recovery, such as strengths, positive qualities and beneficial characteristics of both the individuals involved and whole families.(Seligman, et al., 2006)

References

Nichols, M.P.; Shwartz, R.C. (2007). Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods (8th edition). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Seligman, M.; Rashid, T.; Parks, A.C. (November 2006) American Psychologist. pp.774-778.