Citation

Nielsen JM, Buus N, Berring LL. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023; 20(12).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph20126094

PMID

37372681

PMCID

PMC10297837

Abstract

The realisation of recovery as an overarching goal of mental health care services has proven difficult to achieve in practice. At present, concepts of recovery are contested and unclear, which affects their implementation in psychiatric practices. We examined social psychiatric policies about recovery with the aim to explore their underlying assumptions about recovery. Relevant texts from the policies' knowledge bases were subjected to reflexive thematic analysis. We developed a central theme: "A clinical standardisation of the concept of recovery". The theme involved meaning clusters that encompassed conflicting and commonly shared assumptions about recovery across the text corpus. We discussed the findings from discourse analytical and governmentality perspectives. In conclusion, the policies' aim of providing clarity about recovery was circumvented by the very knowledge bases used to support their endeavours.

Language: en

Keywords

Humans; Public Policy; mental health; management; recovery; policy; *Mental Health Services; *Mental Disorders/therapy; *Mental Health Recovery; discourses; governmentality; knowledge bases; social psychiatry