‘I don’t think it should make a huge difference if you haven’t got the ‘R’ word in it’: Practitioner accounts of mental health recovery

Abstract

Rhetorically contextualised against a history of poor outcomes and negative attitudes, New Labour’s mental health policy introduced recovery as a turn towards optimism, control and choice for those who provide and use mental health services. Recovery continues to occupy a key role within contemporary policy and practice. Despite such privilege recovery remains a contested concept, not least because it means different things to different people.

This article reports empirical work conducted during 2010-11, and explores two interpretive repertoires (traditional and responsibilised-progressive) that mental health practitioners draw upon in their accounts of recovery. Grounded in constructionist theory, the findings suggest that practitioner accounts of recovery are diverse, and produce many different subject positions from which recovery may be experienced.

Developing Webber and Joubert’s (2016) editorial comments on the challenge for Social Work, it is argued that professional Social Work must practice in a manner compatible with its own value-base and any model of recovery must be held up for scrutiny. A knowledgeable position for the practitioner is advocated, one that is capable of working multiple paradigms in order to better understand and meet service user need.