Making recovery meaningful for people with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Background: A recovery approach within mental health services has gained momentum. Its meaning for adults with intellectual disabilities recovering from mental health disorders is less understood. Peoples' experiences of recovery were explored to help inform recovery-focused recommendations for clinical practise.Method: A qualitative design using interpretative phenomenological analysis was applied. Nine interviews with people with intellectual disabilities who had experienced mental health disorders were conducted.Results: Two themes that emerged focusing on entry to service and the recovery experience. Subthemes for entry to service included unfair treatment, valuing information and managing expectations. The recovery experience subthemes were therapeutic alliance, self-management, emotional development, autonomy, connectedness, positive identity and a belief in recovery.Conclusions: Hearing peoples' experiences directly allowed the current themes to emerge in the context of living with lifelong disabilities. This article adds to the sparse literature and highlights considerations for recovery-based interventions for people with intellectual disabilities.

Peer support by and for people with learning disabilities

“…The group's views about the causes of mental health acknowledged both medical, psychological and social understandings. They emphasised social barriers such as stigma and discrimination, which echoed the experiences of other mental health service users and people with learning disabilities (Beresford et al, 2010; Trustam et al, 2022).…”

“…Reflecting on research into what people with learning disabilities think about recovery (accessible summary of the findings from (Trustam et al, 2022).…”

“…They found that people with learning disabilities saw their mental health and learning disabilities as difficult to separate. The authors also thought that the people in this group had negative views about learning disabilities and that they tried to distance themselves from this identity (Trustam et al, 2022).…”

“…Discussing recovery in mental health. Reflecting on research into what people with learning disabilities think about recovery(accessible summary of the findings from(Trustam et al, 2022).Workshop 3 Peer support and recovery colleges Reflecting on times when we have given or received support from a peer.…”