Barnes H (2009) Is empowerment enough? How far can international recovery policy ensure social inclusion, rights and recovery amongst people with serious mental health concerns? Cardiff University 25-27 June 2009

Abstract

A major international development in policy for serious mental health problems is the recovery model. This model seeks to promote citizenship rights, autonomy and full social participation amongst service users, based upon research evidence that social discrimination is a significant contributor to mental ill-health. Consequently this approach challenges traditional disease discourses in mental health, suggesting social discrimination is of greater concern than symptoms. It further views professional responses within these discourses as contributing to rather than reducing disability through the particular stigma and loss of rights these have incurred historically for people with mental health concerns. The approach thus seeks recovery by focussing not upon vulnerability but individual capacity to manage their symptoms and their lives, and upon community supports rather than services. This model therefore contributes positive citizenship and empowerment values to mental health policy, but the paper will question how far these alone can promote rights and recovery. In exploration of this, the paper will review research evidence which suggests that although service users with serious mental health concerns seek recognition of their personhood and rights, they also have major concerns with suffering and damage to capacity resulting both from symptoms and the impact of social discrimination, leading them to place enormous value too, on many aspects of traditional professional help. These experiences therefore point to the need for new forms of professional ethics, relationship and intervention which can respond to personhood and citizenship, together with the devastating impact of both health and social concerns in mental ill-health.