Tag: Recovery

Peer Respite: Why It Should be Everyone’s Concern

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My intent with this blog is to compare some lessons learned from my recent medical crisis response to a similar peer-run respite response.

What We Have Always Known but Psychiatry Forgot

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When I came off my last medication, my psychiatrist said to me, “You will get sick again.” Psychiatry has always been sure that I would never recover from bipolar disorder.

An Ode Against “Recovery” by Rebecca Donaldson

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An Ode Against “Recovery”: Flourishing After Childhood Trauma by Rebecca Donaldson I remember when a therapist of mine once told me I could “recover.” The...

Treatment Providers Have the Power to Make or Break Recovery

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We need treatment providers that listen to their patients and treat them like human beings. Their job is to support our recovery, not stymie it.

The Role of Love in Mental Health

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The one core ingredient on which any recovery from emotional distress depends is the one that never makes an appearance in any medical handbook or psychiatric diagnostic manual—that is, love.

A Recovery Movement Jedi Master, Bill Anthony, Died Recently

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The first time I met Bill was in 1991. I was just a couple years out of residency, and he was already the legendary “father of psychiatric rehabilitation.”

Recovery: Stressing the Social Basis of the Process

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Recovery involves engaging in new material and social contexts and in open dialogues where new ways of understanding and handling the situation are created.

On Recovery: Scaling the Wall of Fear

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I pray for a rich life, away from the fear of job insecurity, coercive medicine, and false labels. The question still remains as to how to handle societal fears about the ‘mentally ill’. My blessed family are like hypervigilance officers on the watch for the slightest behavioural aberration.

Social Relationships Integral to Recovery in First Episode Psychosis

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Research finds patients of first-episode psychosis report benefits from social relationships where their personhood is respected.

Researchers Propose Mindfulness for Treatment of Bipolar Disorder

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Researchers from Hong Kong test mindfulness interventions for people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.

Recovery Versus Mad Pride: Exploring the Contradictions

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What would mental health treatment look like if it balanced an awareness of the need for “recovery” with an awareness that people also sometimes need to go “out of their minds” to resolve problems that they haven’t been able to solve otherwise, or maybe that their entire culture has not been able to face and resolve?

Valuing Posttraumatic Growth in Psychosis

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Individuals who experience psychosis can also experience posttraumatic growth, which can be a central component of the recovery paradigm.

Mental Health Recovery Narratives Play Central Role in Trauma-Informed Care

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New research synthesizes insights from 45 studies to construct a conceptual framework relating different elements of recovery narratives to trauma-informed approaches to care.

A Secret No Longer

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My psychiatrist/therapist was able to give me a true understanding into what addiction and psychosis really are and how they can be treated with little or no medication. I still struggle, but I have been able to manage my symptoms with the help of ACT therapy, exercise, "forest bathing," storytelling, music and art. I am now able to feel a sense of peaceful fulfillment, and that is all anyone can really ask for.

Mental Health Service Users’ Perspectives on Family-Focused Recovery

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Study explores a multifaceted approach to promote family-focused recovery practice.

As Opioid Crisis Rages, Some Trade “Tough Love” for Empathy

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From Kaiser Health News: "Two torturous days later, Jeff Duncan came home. While he returned to rehab, the Duncans decided their approach wasn’t working....

Peer Support Reduces Chances of Psychiatric Readmission

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A randomized control trial finds that receiving peer support from individuals with similar lived experiences reduces one’s risk of readmission to an acute crisis unit.

The Spanish Yoghurt Farm That Cultivates Better Mental Health

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From Reuters, "'At La Fageda, these people don’t have a label – they are totally integrated – and they start improving, reconstructing themselves without...

Recovery: Creating Your Personal Journey Through Self-Honesty, Resilience and Hope

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Recovery is adapting to how your brain works. You accept how it works, observing what makes it worse or better, and learn to navigate the triggers and symptoms you experience. As you do things differently, these 'corrective experiences' begin to undo the negative beliefs you have internalized.

Social Inclusion and Stipend Enhance Recovery, Study Suggests

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A new study explores the benefits of a befriending program in the recovery of those with “enduring mental illness.”

“How Did This Happen?” – Being Injured By Pharmaceuticals Once Again

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How did it happen to me? It happened because none of us have enough resources for the sort of brain injury and impairment the psychopharmaceutical drugs impart upon us. No one knows what is really being done to our brains and some of us are clearly more sensitive than others.

Changing Mental Health, One Published Case Report At A Time

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Lifestyle interventions are the only corrective measures that are sufficiently complex to resolve the stress response factors that drive pathology. This case draws from twenty years of published scientific literature on psychoneuroimmunology and the connection between the gut, immune system, endocrine system, and the brain.

3 Women Tell Us What It’s Really Like to Live With...

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From Refinery29: Three women who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia share their stories of experiencing psychosis, recovery, and dealing with societal prejudice against people with...

New Review Suggests Higher Recovery and Remission Rates for Psychosis

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Meta-analysis gives updated recovery and remission rates for persons identified as having a first-episode psychosis and those diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Sifting Through Life After Suicide

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From The New York Times: A new documentary film entitled "32 Pills: My Sister's Suicide" tells the story of one woman's efforts to recover from...