Beyond coping with mental illness: Toward personal growth.

Abstract

This study focused on the active attempts of individuals with severe mental illness to make sense of their disorders and initiate processes of personal growth. The findings are based on bimonthly comprehensive assessments conducted over a 1-year period with 43 persons who were hospitalized for schizophrenia and related disorders. Results reveal that living with severe mental illness may also generate processes of growth and change. Clinical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

What is the Lived Experience of Being Discharged From a Psychiatric Inpatient Stay?

“…This appears to be in contrast with research where patients have viewed mental health and illness as dichotomous states , but in line with research reporting that there is not a clear divide between illness and health (Bentall, 2004;Roe & Chopra, 2003). This provides some evidence that the medical model's criteria and cut-off's for diagnosis of mental illness are not supported by patients who view their illness as graded in terms of severity.…”

“…Additionally, they state that stigma stress responses are often related to threatening situations which were not measured. Other coping mechanisms that were not measured in this study, for example active coping, withdrawing and acceptance (Roe & Chopra, 2003) need further research.…”

Coping With Psychosis

“…Studies have shown that there are sometimes positive consequences to experiencing adversity, indicating that people often do more than just cope with them (Affleck and Tennen, 1996;Folkman, 1997;Roe and Chopra 2003). In some respects, this process may be facilitated through the use of specific reactive coping strategies; however, in general, the use of specific strategies has been distinguished from the overall process (see, for example, Affleck and Tennen's [1996] distinction between "benefit-reminding," which they see as a coping strategy, and "benefit finding," which is linked to a larger process).…”

“…While earlier conceptualizations of stress in the behavioral sciences focused on reaction to a stressor (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), more recent examinations include concepts such as "proactive" and "anticipatory coping" (Aspinwall and Taylor, 1997;Hobfoll, 2001;Schwarzer and Taubert, 2002). Additional theoretical work has focused on appraisal, and the way it influences the degree to which different events are experienced as primarily stressful, or alternatively, as challenges or opportunities to practice or prove oneself, anticipate potential gains of mastery (Baltes, 1997), recourses (Hobfoll, 2001) or personal growth (Folkman, 1997;Roe and Chopra, 2003).…”

Recovery from versus recovery in serious mental illness: One strategy for lessening confusion plaguing recovery

“…Recovery refers instead to overcoming the effects of being a mental patientincluding poverty, substandard housing, unemployment, loss of valued social roles and identity, isolation, loss of sense of self and purpose in life, and the iatrogenic effects of involuntary treatment and hospitalization -in order to retain, or resume, some degree of control over their own lives. Given the traumatic nature of being treated as a mental patient, advocates have argued that return to a pre-illness state is impossible, emphasizing instead the gains the person has had to make to manage and overcome the disorder (Chamberlin, 1978;Jacobson & Greenley, 2001;Roe & Chopra, 2003).…”