Micropolitics of Mental Health Recovery: An Assemblage Analysis of People's Experiences of Becoming Well.

Mental health recovery takes place in a social and material world. However, socio-material contexts have often been absent from recovery studies. The present study was conducted in Norway, a Scandinavian welfare country.

1 plus 1 is more than 2: mental health problems, financial difficulties, and social exclusion in a cross-sectional study of 28,047 general-population adults.

Background: Mental health problems and financial difficulties each increase the risk of social exclusion. However, few large studies representing a broad age range have investigated the combined social effect of having both difficulties. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine associations of mental health problems, financial difficulties, and the combination of both with social exclusion.

'Living needs a landscape': A qualitative study about the role of enabling landscapes for people with mental health and substance abuse problems.

The deinstitutionalization of mental health institutions has enabled service users to live in the community and search for what Duff coins 'enabling places.' These places were explored through walking interviews, in which service-users led the way. This analysis revealed features which made places promote liveable lives: places help people explore, places help people stand out, places give people responsibilities, and places dare people.

The Lost Social Context of Recovery Psychiatrization of a Social Process.

From being a concept questioning the core of psychiatric knowledge and practice, recovery has been adopted as a guiding vison for mental health policy and practice by different local, national, and international organizations. The aim of this article is to contextualize the different understandings of recovery and its psychiatrization through the emergence of an individualizing and de-contextualized definition which have gained a dominant position. It ends with an attempt to formulate a new definition of recovery which integrates people in their social context.

Mutual learning: exploring collaboration, knowledge and roles in the development of recovery-oriented services. A hermeneutic-phenomenological study.

Purpose: The concept of recovery is commonly described as multifaceted and contested in the field of mental health and substance abuse. The aim of this study is to explore how understandings of recovery and recovery orientation of services are developed through daily practices and collaboration between service users and professionals.

Methods: Eight pairs of participants were interviewed together, in accordance with the dyadic interview method.

Diversity, Complexity and Ordinality: Mental Health Services Outside the Institutions-Service Users' and Professionals' Experience-Based Practices and Knowledges, and New Public Management.

In conjunction with the dismantling of psychiatric hospitals, social workers have been commissioned to help service users in their daily living in their homes and in the community. The consequences of these changes for experience-based knowledge and practices in their contexts remain relatively unknown. In this study, eighteen service users and the social workers they described as helpful for them were interviewed.

You realise you are better when you want to live, want to go out, want to see people: Recovery as assemblage.

Background: The lack of social and material perspectives in descriptions of recovery processes is almost common in recovery research.

Aim: Consequently, we investigated recovery stories and how people with mental health and/or addiction challenges included social and material aspects in these stories.

Method: We conducted focus group and individual interviews.

The Stockholm Follow-up Study of Users Diagnosed with Psychosis (SUPP): A 10-year Follow-up 2004-2013.

Since the 1970s, psychiatric care in the western world has undergone fundamental changes known as de-institutionalisation. This has changed the living conditions for people with severe mental illness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the living conditions and utilisation of care and social services for a group of people in Sweden with diagnosis of psychosis over a 10-year period, 2004-2013.

Things matter: about materiality and recovery from mental health difficulties.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore how material things might become involved in the recovery process of people with mental health difficulties.

Method: Empirical material from three different studies on various aspects concerning mental health issues that each of the authors had conducted was reanalysed through a phenomenological item analysis.

Results: We discovered that mundane objects such as a mobile phone, a bench, a door and a key have agency to contribute to peoples' recovery and wellbeing.

Materialities in supported housing for people with mental health problems: a blurry picture of the tenants.

Our daily lives and sense of self are partly formed by material surroundings that are often taken for granted. This materiality is also important for people with mental health problems living in supported housing with surroundings consisting of different healthcare services, neighbourhoods, buildings or furniture. In this study, we explored how understandings of tenants are expressed in the materialities of supported housing.

"I will never forget him". A qualitative exploration of staff descriptions of helpful relationships in supportive housing.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Recovery-oriented studies show that the quality of the professional relationship plays an essential role in the recovery from mental illness. Within mental health care in general, previous studies show that helpful professional relationships are characterized by several reciprocal aspects, such as friendship resemblance and self-disclosure. The literature is scarce on in-depth explorations of professional relationships within the often long-lasting and intimate help context of institutional supportive housing.

Beyond formalized plans: User involvement in support in daily living - users' and support workers' experiences.

Background: User involvement, based on respect and carried out through dialogue, has been shown to lead to increased self-respect, self-confidence and positive identity. In Sweden, the Social Service Act requires that interventions be designed and implemented together with the individual concerned. The basic criterion for social support is prolonged severe mental illness (usually at least 6 months), with no criteria for specific diagnosis or institutional history.

Nothing matters: the significance of the unidentifiable, the superficial and nonsense.

The aim of this study is to explore the ways in which "small things" may be of importance for people with mental health difficulties. Empirical material from three different studies was reanalysed through a phenomenological, dialogical, approach. We discovered some paradoxical aspects of small things: i.

Studies regarding supported housing and the built environment for people with mental health problems: A mixed-methods literature review.

Places where people live are important for their personal and social lives. This is also the case for people with mental health problems living in supported housing. To summarise the existing knowledge, we conducted a systematic review of 13 studies with different methodologies regarding the built environment in supported housing and examined their findings in a thematic analysis.

Recovery and economy; salary and allowances: a 10-year follow-up of income for persons diagnosed with first-time psychosis.

Purpose: Persons with severe mental health problems (SMHP) point out financial strain as one of their main problems. De-institutionalisation in welfare countries has aimed at normalisation of their living conditions. The aim of the study was to follow the changes in income and source of income during a 10-year period for persons with a first-time psychosis diagnosis (FTPD).

Small Things, Micro-Affirmations and Helpful Professionals Everyday Recovery-Orientated Practices According to Persons with Mental Health Problems.

The aim of this study is to present concrete descriptions of the content in the construction of helpful relationships with staff, according to users. Starting with the re-occurring concept of the meaning of "little things" in recovery studies, a literature review was done. A thematic analysis shows that small things play an important role in improving a person's sense of self.

Money, Social Relationships and the Sense of Self: The Consequences of an Improved Financial Situation for Persons Suffering from Serious Mental Illness.

During a 9-month period, 100 persons with SMI were given approx. 73 USD per month above their normal income. Sixteen of the subjects were interviewed.

A Balancing Act-How Mental Health Professionals Experience Being Personal in Their Relationships with Service Users.

Background: Although being personal in relationships with service users is commonly described as an important aspect of the way that professionals help people with severe mental problems, this has also been described to bring with it a need to keep a distance and set boundaries.

Aims: This study aims to explore how professionals working in psychiatric care view being personal in their relationships with users.

Method: Qualitative interviews with 21 professionals working in three outpatient psychiatric units, analyzed through thematic analysis.

A place for the heart: A journey in the post-asylum landscape. Metaphors and materiality.

The downsizing of psychiatric hospitals has created a new institutional landscape in the local community to support people with severe mental problems in their daily living. This study explores meeting places in Norway from the users' perspectives. The users used four metaphors to describe these meeting places: "like a home", "like a family", "like a landing ground" and "like a trampoline".

Experience of Psychotropic Medication -An Interview Study of Persons with Psychosis.

Psychotropic drugs, particularly antipsychotic types, are a cornerstone of the treatment of people with psychosis. Despite numerous studies showing that drug treatment with psychotropic drugs initially alleviates psychiatric symptoms, the proportion of people with mental health problems and symptoms that do not follow doctors' prescriptions, thus exhibiting so-called non-adherence, is considerable. Non-adherence is predominantly seen as a clinical feature and as a patient characteristic that is especially due to patients' poor understanding that they are ill.

Non-helpful relationships with professionals - a literature review of the perspective of persons with severe mental illness.

Background: The relationship with professionals has proved to be important with regard to outcome for persons with severe mental illness (SMI). The understanding of non-helpful relationships is important complementary knowledge to that regarding helpful relationships.

Aim: To review the available qualitative research providing knowledge of non-helpful relationships from the perspective of persons with SMI.

Money and Mental Illness: A Study of the Relationship Between Poverty and Serious Psychological Problems.

Unlabelled: Several studies have indicated a co-occurrence between mental problems, a bad economy, and social isolation. Medical treatments focus on reducing the extent of psychiatric problems. Recent research, however, has highlighted the possible effects of social initiatives.

After the Asylum? The New Institutional Landscape.

During the last decades services to people with severe mental health problems have gone through important changes. Terms as de-, trans-, reinstitutionalisation and dehospitalisation has been used. The objective of the study was to collected data about the changes in a welfare society about the new institutional landscape after the mental hospital area.

The Art of Helpful Relationships with Professionals: A Meta-ethnography of the Perspective of Persons with Severe Mental Illness.

Relationships with professionals have been shown to be helpful to persons with severe mental illness (SMI) in relation to a variety of services. In this article, we aimed to synthesize the available qualitative research to acquire a deepened understanding of what helpful relationships with professionals consists of, from the perspective of persons with SMI. To do this, we created a meta-ethnography of 21 studies, through which ten themes and an overarching interpretation were created.

The components of helping relationships with professionals in psychiatry: users' perspective.

Background: The quality of the relationship between professional and user is one of the important factors in the recovery process. However, more knowledge is needed concerning the components of helping relationships and characteristics of the helping professional. The aim of this study was to explore users' experiences of helping relationships with professionals.