Lived Experience and Recovery-Oriented Mental Health Services

This essay analyzes how lived experience can improve therapy plans for mental health complications, using Sandy Jeffs' recovery journey from schizophrenia as an example. It discusses the concept of lived experience, recovery-oriented culture, and the National Framework for Recovery-Oriented Mental Health Services. The essay emphasizes the importance of person-centered care and social inclusion in mental health services.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH
Nursing: Mental Health
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Sandy Jeffs is an award winning people and author and diagnosed with schizophrenia
at the age of 23 and hasfoughtwith the disease for schizophrenia for over 35 years. She is an
advocate and performs community education based on her experiences of living with mental
illness. In 2010 her memoir “Flying with Paper Wings” was selected as Sane Australia’s
Book of the Year (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2016). The following essay aims
to analyse the how lived experience can help to improve the therapy plan for the subsequent
recovery from the mental health complications. This lived experience will be discussed under
the light of the recovery journey of Sandy Jeff from schizophrenia and national framework
for recovery-oriented mental health services: guide for practitioners and providers.
The concept of the lived experience of mental health and illness
According to Department of Health Australia (2013), lived experience and thoughts of
people suffering from mental health complications are an important domain of modifying
care giving process to the population suffering from mental health. Just like all the residents
of the society, peoplewho are suffering from mental health complications desire meaningful
occupation, respect in their lives and sustaining relationships. Aiming on people’s lived
experience and on their requirement rather than focusing on the organisational policies offer a
completely new yet transformative conceptual framework for practise and service delivery
and thereby promoting fast recovery (Department of Health Australia 2013). The
phenomenological analysis of the lived experience of the mental health nurse conducted by
Maddockset al. (2010) showed that neither family-centred care nor a person-centred outlook
is sufficiently to comprehensively meet the required to the mental health clients. An
integrated model of care that encompasses person-centred and family-centred approach must
work in tandem in order to achieve fastest recovery.

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According to Australian Health Minister’s Advisory Council (2017), joining lived
experience along with skills and knowledge of mental health professionals bestows profound
opportunities towardscultural change in the manner it challenges theprevailing norms of
professional skills. A majority of the mental health professionals has lived experience of
mental health either in their close relationships or in their own lives and thisrecovery
paradigms will help to change the traditional demarcation between service givers and users.
Within the recovery paradigms, all groups of people are respected for theirexpertise,
experience and strengths that they contribute.
The concept of recovery in the experience of mental health and illness
The concept of recovery oriented culture in mental health and illness services
dealswith providing proper assistance to the people with mental health complications with
proper combination of treatments, supports and services. Recovery oriented practise of
mental health also centres on the eliminationof discrimination via removing barriers and
thereby promoting comprehensive participation in education, work and community life
(Australian Health Minister’s Advisory Council, 2017). According to the reports published
by Dalum et al. (2015), health care professionals passthrough recovery-oriented changes in
their attitude directed towards life with mental illness. This alters their approach of
professional practise and directs it towards the stronger focus on client’s personal goal rather
than disease oriented goals. Parker (2014) further opined that the philosophy of recovery
from mental illness is a personal process that is based on four internal condition that includes
hope, understanding, empowerment and connection. For these four condition to exist, Parker
(2014) have proposed proper implementation of four key values namely person oriented care,
involvement of the person, self choice or self determination and hope.

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Main ideas of the National framework for recovery-oriented mental health services: guide
for practitioners and providers
The national framework for recovery-oriented mental health services provides a
direction towards the new policy in order to up lift the mental health service procurement in
Australia. The framework supports attitudinal and cultural change and encourages a principal
review of mix of skills within the team of mental health. The main idea of the framework is
to provide a detailed analysis of the recovery and lived experience. According to the
framework, recovery-oriented approach offers a transformative conceptual for practise and
service procurement in mental health which recognizing the values of lived experience and
insight of people with mental health complication and their family members. Furthermore,
here the concept of recovery is linked the ability to live and create a meaningful and
contributing life under the community settings with or without the presence of mental health
issues. Thus the recovery-oriented mental health service delivery is mostly emphasizes on the
needs and the aspirations of the people and requires a shared commitments and visions at all
level of organisations (Australian Health Minister’s Advisory Council, 2017).
Sandy Jeffs: Recovery Oriented Practice
Sandy Jeffs was found saying in the video published by Australian Human Rights
Commission (2016) that people who are suffering from the mental health complications has
no purpose in life, no reasoning, no hope, no meaning. She said, “because you are mental ill,
people look down at you, people stigmatized you”. According to her, this lack of aim in life
lowers their self-esteem and thereby increasing the chronicity of the problem. Sheopined that
it is the duty of the people in the community to help this group of people via providing them
with meaningful job and thereby helping them to get a sense of worthiness in life. She mainly
said that all they need is equal opportunity to work along with guidance. One cannot chuck

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people in a situationforcefully and blame them for their failure. It is the duty of the people
residing in the community to provide support to the mentally ill people in order to cope up
with the work conduction. The opinion of Sandy Jeff’s goes in sync with the National
framework for recovery-oriented mental health services. According to this framework, the
recovery structure must model based on education, employment, housing and social plus
family relationships. This it provides a direct approach towards person centred care model
along with taking proper actions towards social inclusion and social determinants. Thus it is
the duty of the mental health care professionals to build the therapy plan based on
individuals’ values and this will in turn promote self-understanding of their psychosis and
thereby supporting fast recovery and subsequent development of self-management skills
(Stanghellini, Bolton & Fulford, 2013). Mental healthcare professionals must also work in
unison with the community members towards the way of underpinning cultural and social
factors, which will promote social inclusion, and thereby contributing towards the lower
levels of stigma, during the tenure of extreme hardship (Evans-Lacko et al., 2014; Tew et al.,
2012).
While illustrating per personal story, Sandy Jeffs quoted, “I was told by the doctors
that I would go deeper into the madness from which I will never ever recover. So the
prognosis was disgusting and so in order to do something fruitful, I started documenting my
madness in poetry”. The National framework for recovery-oriented mental health
servicesalso vouch towards the active observance of the supporting personal recovery. Like
in case of Sandy Jeff’s, the mental healthcare professionals instead of demotivating her
recovery, progress, must have supported towards fast personal recovery. According to Slade
et al. (2012) demotivation or lack of hope decreases the hope of the mental health patients
and thereby increasing the severity of the mental health complications further. Slade et al.
(2012) have further opined that recovery is not about getting physically fit or ceasing the

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requirement of support. The true meaning of recovery is “recovering a life”, the right to
participate in all facets of economic and civic life as an equal citizen.
In the video Sandy Jeff’s has said that her first book got published whenshe was 40
years old and it changed her life completely. Thus, it can be said that her poetry came as a
medium of salvation that helped her to emote her pain and thereby helping her to cope with
the mental health complications. For example in her poem Medicated, she has written:
I’ve been Imipramined, Prothiadened, Lexaproed
Effexored & Zolofted to happiness
I was Valiumed&Ativaned into tranquility
Now I’m Zyprexaed& ravenous &fuzzled
I’m Lamotrigined & balanced
& Seroquelled
Yes indeedy, I’m medicated & dedicated to
The medication trolley
Here’s looking at you pill bottles
This intricate use of the names of the anti-depression pills and its linage towards its
prospective outcomes provided a detailed insight about how she has used her poetry to
express her feelings associated with rigorous intake to innumerable medicines and she has
right-fully accepted the entire process.According to the Sealet al. (2012) medicines might
provide an instant relief from the physical complication but active mental support along with
proper procurement of medicine will accelerate the path of recovery. The same thing is

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evident from the poem of Sandy Jeff that she is only living on piles of medicines and
considering medicines are her enemy or competitors however, proper mental support will
help her recover faster by considering medicines not as her competitor but as a medium to
fast recovery. This approach goes in accordance with the guidance of tailoring recovery-
oriented responses as this promotes comprehensive health and wellbeing via proving both
medication and mental health support (Australian Health Minister’s Advisory Council, 2017).
In another poem named McMadness, she has written,
Now that you are here
terms& conditions apply
you can only stay a few days
but don’t worry we’ll get you McSane
before you can say
can I have some compassion with that?
we’ll give you drugs that will fatten you up
kill your libido
make you dribble & constipated
turn you into a zombie
sedate to you to exhaustion
eventually bring on diabetes
cardiovascular disease

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& premature death
but we’ll have you out of here like shit off a shovel
even if you’re still mad
Thus it shows that how the doctors brutally prescribeseries of medicines without
analysing its associated side-effects and how the consumptions of gamut medicines are
actually reducing the quality of life of the mental health patients. According to Murrough et
al. (2013) the side-effects of anti-depressant pills hampers the quality of life in the long run
via generating mental health complications. So in order to produce comprehensive health and
well-being it the duty of the healthcare professionals to procure therapy plan based on the life
circumstances (physical and mental) and thus giving importance towards person centered
care based on lived experiences (Australian Health Minister’s Advisory Council, 2017).
Moreover, Bratman, Hamilton and Daily (2012) is of the opinion that both natural and
physical environment impact the health and well-being of the human. The physical
complications arising out of the long-term anti-depressant treatments might have their own
further medication approach but providing assistance in the form of upliftment of the
surrounding environment will provide the mental health patient strength to cope up with the
associated physical complications.
Thus, from the above discussion it can be concluded that framing of the mental health
recovery plan based on the lived experience of the mental health practitioners or mental
health service consumers will promote fastest recovery of the mental health patients. The
National framework for recovery-oriented mental health services: guide for practitioners and
providers provide a detailed recovery-oriented service delivery plan for comprehensive
procurement of the mental health therapy. Under this therapy person centred care, health and

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well-being and actions towards social exclusion gets special prominence and this gain aligns
with the lived experience of Sandy Jeffs.

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References
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http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/67D17065514CF8E8C
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