Recovering Care

What is good care for people with psychiatric disabilities? This is the central question in this book. A question which can best be answered by the persons with disabilities themselves. After all, they are the ones who know what life with a disability means and how professional services can support them to take care of the disability and to help them live a meaningful life.

Over the last decades studies in many different countries documenting experiential knowledge of people with psychiatric disabilities are providing more and more insights in the phenomena of recovery. Recovery is a process in which the person is learning to live with the disability or even to overcome the disability, to an extent that meaningful social roles in the community can be fulfilled.

This book offers an overview of the current knowledge about recovery in mental health. It also describes the results of a narrative study in the Netherlands, which adds new insights into phenomena of the process of recovery and the factors which contribute to recovery. The study also provides insights about how mental health services can contribute to recovery.

On the basis of a thorough analyses of the experiential data, the author has developed a theory and practice of ‘good care’. This offers an exciting new framework for professionals working in the field of long term care.