The development of the recovery narrative was seen as a way of moving beyond notions that those who have experienced extreme forms of distress are essentially ‘broken’ and can instead go on to build a meaningful life autonomously. It was developed in a context in which psychiatric ‘care’ was heavily institutionalised and imagined a world in which service users could have choice about what went into helping them achieve their aims.
Critiques of Recovery
Whilst a recovery narrative offers the potential to provide people hope to those who may otherwise be cast aside, the initiative presents a clear example in which a concept developed out of lived experience has been co-opted and repackaged in less helpful terms. This is because it has been redeveloped out of a medical model of distress, being used to serve a medical ideology. As such successful recovery has begun to be seen as best achieved by taking your pills and getting back to work, and not a more nuanced and complex journey which might better represent somebody achieving a new sense of wellbeing.
Another means recovery narratives have struggled to live up to their early promise is the fact that those tasked to support people on their journey are often embedded in systems which have previously enacted violence on the people they are tasked to support. This can mean genuine mutual trust becomes nearly impossible to develop. The constant threat of compulsory treatment and detention leading to a culture of fear which is not appropriate for holding space for the kind of therapeutic relationships which can empower users to develop.