Narratives of recovery from mental illness: the role of peer support

Development of a Lived Experience-Based Digital Resource for a Digitally-Assisted Peer Support Program for Young People Experiencing Psychosis

“…Mental health services have been shifting towards a recovery-oriented approach to mental health treatment. This has been heavily influenced by a broader consumer movement in mental health advocating for mental health services to prioritize personally meaningful goals of consumers, rather than narrowly focussing on symptom remission ( 7 , 8 ). This focus of services is often referred to as personal recovery to distinguish it from traditional clinical (symptom remission) and functional (return to work or study) conceptualizations of recovery.…”

“…In supporting the notion of recovery, an emerging feature of recovery-oriented mental health services is engaging people with lived experience of mental health difficulties into service delivery ( 7 , 20 , 21 ). Peer Support Workers (PSWs) are employed by mental health services and often use their personal experiences of mental illness, “along with relevant training and supervision to facilitate, guide, and mentor another person’s recovery journey by instilling hope, modeling recovery, and supporting people in their own efforts to reclaim meaningful and gratifying lives in the communities of their choice” [p. 4, ( 22 )].…”

“…This focus of services is often referred to as personal recovery to distinguish it from traditional clinical (symptom remission) and functional (return to work or study) conceptualizations of recovery. This concept of personal recovery emphasizes a process whereby individuals live a hopeful, rewarding, and satisfying life, sometimes in the presence of ongoing symptoms (7,9,10). In a synthesis of the existing literature, Leamy et al (11) proposed a framework of five personal recovery themes, highlighted from mental health consumer accounts of their own recovery from severe mental illness.…”