David Whitwell's thesis is that it is not conventional psychiatric treatment that is key to recovery but non-specific aspects of care such as support, safety, general health, good relationships. The author's conclusion is that recovery should be adopted as the goal of mental health services. Treatment then becomes just one option that can be used in certain situations, for example acute psychiatry becomes a particular set of procedures for dealing with essentially urgent and dangerous situations - as a special kind of first aid which needs to be fitted into the individual's long-term recovery plan.

About the Author
David Whitwell is a psychiatrist who has worked in acute psychiatry all his professional life

Reviews
"If you can understand how people recover from mental illness then you may be able to help them. I had come to realise that psychiatry is all about symptoms and illness and has little to say about recovery........many of my patients were not making good recoveries when this was judged in narrow clinical terms. I concluded that the recovery promised by medical treatment is a myth; held out as a goal, but rarely attainable."



Book Information
ISBN 9781853439230
Author David Whitwell
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Free Association Books
Publisher Free Association Books