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Psychiatry and the Recovery Process

However, this perspective cannot possibly lead to a client's recovery. Clients do not get better simply by sitting idly by and waiting for medications to take effect. The predominant processes in an individual's progression toward recovery occur in the arenas of subjectivity and irrationality. The client who perceives that something strictly rational, rather mechanical, and routinely procedural is occurring is not sufficiently involved in the mysterious aspects that need to take place in order for the client to leave the hospital with the hope of adopting a new and healthier approach to life. This person is likely to experience relapse in the near future. To accomplish a change of "people, places, and things," as the 12-step literature describes, an individual needs support in developing skills in several areas—community living, social, recreational, educational, and vocational skills—so that the individual's environment can become different from the one that precipitated the decompensation.

From the professional's point of view, the action of treatment is confined to the brain, while to the client, the actions of significance occur in the mind. Whereas the study of the brain is largely a science, the study of the mind cannot be purely scientific, because free will operates within the realm of the mind. Free will, quite clearly, cannot be reduced to a strictly rational or mechanical process that is subject to scientific analysis. To act as if the mind can be scientifically determined is to seek to end free will on the client's part.

What I believe is lacking in much acute psychiatric services is attention to the client's spirit. An honest and sincere attention to spirit involves a critical contemplation of the "riddle of life," the aspects of self that are mysterious and enigmatic. Such considerations are what make recovery a spiritual as opposed to scientific venture. In a spiritual venture, subjective, experiential, irrational, and emotional processes are more central than empirical, rational, and highly objective processes.

Alan Lunt, M.S.

Footnotes

Mr. Lunt, who lives in Boonton, New Jersey, is a consumer of mental health services.

Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Email this article to a Colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to My Articles & Searches Download to citation manager Citing Articles via Google Scholar Articles by Lunt, A. Search for Related Content PubMed Citation Articles by Lunt, A. General Topics in Psychiatry Chronically Mentally Ill Patients Patient Advocacy Patient Satisfaction, Quality of Life Crisis and Emergency Treatment Hospitals, Hospital Treatment Quality of Care, Practice Guidelines Service Utilization Other Health Services Issues Research Design, Methodology Other Violence/Aggression

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