Recovery from psychosis: A mental health inpatient perspective

Background: Within the recovery literature there has been a drive towards obtaining service users' conceptualisations of recovery as opposed to medicalised conceptualisations, in order to inform service provision. The focus remains on community populations who have described recovery from psychosis as a journey involving rebuilding the self, finding hope, and reclaiming a purpose in life. There is limited literature conceptualising recovery from psychosis for those accessing MHI services. Aims: To gain a deeper understanding of MHIs' lived experiences of recovery from psychosis and to conceptualise recovery from psychosis through MHIs' descriptions. Methodology: In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with MHIs and analysed via interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results: Five superordinate themes and accompanying subordinate themes emerged. The superordinate themes developed were: "My future is just being ripped out in front of me": Living with psychosis is a struggle; "Would you want to be in here?": Traumatic experience of being in hospital; "I know roughly why I got ill anyway and what caused this": A journey towards reaching an understanding; Recovery/Rehabilitation/Recuperation: A process of evolution; and "You need all the help you can get": Facilitators of Recovery. Living with psychosis is a struggle reflects the struggles experienced which appeared to hinder recovery. The experience of hospitalisation was described as traumatic and was seen by many as preventing recovery. Recovery was described as an evolutionary process involving reaching an understanding about individual experiences. Facilitators of recovery were identified. Conclusions: This study highlighted that for the participants interviewed, MHI settings are not settings where everyone can be in recovery or approaching recovery however the concept of recovery is viewed. For some participants recovery appeared to be an 'empty signifier' that is meaningless and is a word used by services that does not necessarily correspond with some of their experiences of MHI settings.