Mental Health Staff Perspectives on Personal Recovery: A Narrative Study on Positive Professional Impact of Recovery-Oriented Care

Objectives Mental health staff play an important role in facilitating personal recovery. We examined how mental health staff perceived personal recovery and the impact of their experience with supporting personal recovery. Research Design and Methods Forty-eight mental health staff wrote a narrative about a service user with severe mental illness that they believed to be in personal recovery and elaborated on the impact of this professional experience. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to illuminate 1) conceptualizations of personal recovery, 2) professional contribution to recovery, and 3) positive impact of recovery-oriented care on staff. Results Conceptualizations of recovery focused on social connections and positive subjective states, and also symptom remission and illness management. Professional contributions were narrated as encompassing treatment, relationships and conversations as well as time and team collaboration. Impact on the staff included strong positive emotions, professional gains with respect to learning and self-esteem, motivation for and meaning in work as well as belief in recovery. Conclusions This latter finding suggests that sharing narratives about service users in personal recovery may increase work pleasure and help reduce burn out in mental health staff.