Mental Health Recovery and Its Measurement

This assignment explores the core concepts of recovery-oriented mental health services, emphasizing the importance of patient empowerment and well-being. It delves into various measurement tools used to assess personal recovery in individuals with mental health conditions. Additionally, the assignment analyzes the film 'The Sunnyboy' as a case study, providing insights into the lived experiences of those navigating mental illness and recovery.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
Mental health nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
A mental health patient may not have complete recovery from his or her illness. One
may recover from the physical illness but in mental health, nursing the word “complete
recovery” is a rarely used. Mental health nursing is more than the treatment or management
of symptoms. Recovery refers to having support, building resilience and ability to process
thoughts. For this purpose the recovery principles are developed that will help guide the
patient’s recovery from mental illness. In this assignment Jeremy Oxley‘s recovery pathway
is discussed. He is the founder of the band named, “Sunny Boys” and is known to be a gifted
musician. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He lived twenty years with this illness and
yet returned to the stage. The essay discusses the principles of recovery in response to the
mental health problems experienced by Jeremy.
Sunny Boys is the popular Australian band, led by the famous guitarist, Jeremy
Oxley. The documentary video shows the life of Jeremy and his remarkable journey with
schizophrenia. At the age of 18, he was popular as talented singer and was popular of
successful band. In early 1980s, Oxley performed along with Peter (elder brother). Peter was
a bass guitarist. They achieved a great success in very short period of time. Oxley became a
busy man right in those years and engaged in hectic schedules of recording sessions and
relentless touring. It turned out be stressful for him and ultimately led to physical as well as
mental burnout (Chien et al., 2013). In one incident, Oxley in 2012, walked out of the
Enmore Theatre. Nobody could comprehend the rationale of this behaviour. It was the sign of
his crushing health. Eventually, this came out be schizophrenia and Oxley was trapped into
this lonely horror of mental illness (The Sunnyboy, 2013).
Bill Bilson, the childhood friend of Oxley, describes him as fun loving and
gentleperson. His friends knew him as perfectionist. Bill was a drummer of the band Sunny
Boys. He was in surfing before and later engaged in guitar playing. He described that Oxley,
was highly stressed due to hectic schedule. Eventually he started to have disturbed thinking

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pattern and paranoid thoughts. He started with excessive alcohol consumption and was
slowly turning arrogant particularly during the shows (McGorry, 2014). He failed to continue
with the high performance in band as earlier. Soon the newspaper articles exposed his bad
behaviour to the public, He was always found to be down and out, as he sought the refuge of
alcohol and drugs. This phase indicates a heavy impact of schizophrenia on Oxley. This
behaviour led to the demise of the popular band, “The Sunny Boys”. Peter was initially
unable to comprehend the rationale for this bizarre behaviour of Oxley. It was difficult for
Jeremy at that point to understand and accept his mental illness. He refused to undergo
treatment and he was separated with his brother. It was difficult life for Jeremy as he was
becoming a complex personality. He was himself not able to figure out the changes
happening in his life. He was experiencing auditory hallucinations. He experienced hearing
voices of people who are not around him. He had illusion that people prefer his brother Peter
more than him. He felt that somebody stole his music from him. These were classic signs of
schizophrenia and hearing of voices is also known as “first-rank symptom” for schizophrenia.
Jeremy’s non compliance to the medical treatment could be justified by his denial of
illness. He refused to accept Schizophrenia and denied the medical intervention. He also did
not maintain a healthy regime knowing about his unusual heart rhythms and diabetes. Many
people refuse treatment as they fail to understand and accept the psychotic episodes
experienced by them (Chandra et al., 2014). This significantly hampers their recovery
process. People cannot accept mental illness as fast they could cope up with the physical
illness. Consequently, their quality of life is deteriorated. Awareness of mental illness is less
likely to be found in some people (Kate et al., 2013). It was same with Jeremy as he had no
insights of Schizophrenia. He married Mary Griffith, who finally helped him to recover from
Schizophrenia (The Sunnyboy, 2013).

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Recovery from mental illness is not known as clinical recovery. It is more of a
personal recovery, where a person understands the illness, and expertise with the
manifestations of the illness. It is different from the clinical illness where a person has to
work hard to change the attitude towards life, values, beliefs, attitude towards life, emotional
and social skills, roles and feelings (Cavelti, Homan & Vauth, 2016). In this type of recovery
a person have to try to live a meaningful life despite the limitations imposed by the mental
illness. It is called as living in hope and adding value to life, to make it more meaningful. In
this type of recovery, a mentally ill patient tries to find purpose to life and way to grow
beyond the catastrophic events. Recovery from complex mental health condition needs a
change in personal attitude and perspective towards life. It cannot be cured solely based on
medications. Emotional support is vital to recover from schizophrenia (Hasson-Ohayon et al.,
2014). It requires proper guidance to cope up with the limitations of the illnesses. Mary
offered such support and guidance to Oxley. She gave him mental comfort to cope with his
illness. They had a happy life together and had two children Kieran and Lachlan, also came
out be a helping hand in Oxley’s recovery (The Sunnyboy, 2013).
There are six principles of mental health recovery according to the National Recovery
Framework. This framework is to guide a patient, to hope and gain confidence, engage
proactively in life, understand and accept the mental illness and its symptoms, cope up with
disabilities, gain personal autonomy, build social identity, and foster positive self-image
(Hasson-Ohayon et al., 2014). In the subsequent sections some of the principles are explained
that are relevant to the given case study.
The first principle deals with the recovery of an individual with one’s own
uniqueness. It means that the recovery is all about having satisfactory life. This type of
recovery is based on opportunities for making healthy choices that can add value to life. The
objective of the recovery principle is to help a patient live a meaningful life, and be a

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contributing factor in a society (health.gov.au, 2013). This recovery principle emphasise on
the individual empowerment and improving the quality of life. Mary empowered Jeremy, to
make choices that are healthy for his life, their family and children. Jeremy gained a social
status with his wife and two children. With the emotional support and attachment of love,
Jeremy could make individual choices. He could recognise his importance, and uniqueness
which made him engage in self management process (Department of Health, 2017).
The second principle refers to the way of empowering and supporting the individual
with mental illness, to make choices, explore the choices meaningfully and creatively and
acknowledge the choices (health.gov.au, 2013). Jeremy could make individual choices as he
was empowered during his recovery period. During his recovery he was engaged in painting
to express his thoughts and emotions. He could vent out his feelings through colours and
painting. It helped him to become more creative and expressive. He was happy to teach guitar
to his children. It made him and his children when playing music as depicted in video.
Eventually it helped Jeremy to gain strength and own accountability of his actions. As he
spent time with his family, he felt more responsible towards his life. To help Jeremy balance
his personal life and professional liabilities this engagement was necessary. To make him use
his opportunities, it was necessary for him to ensure balance between support and duty of
care.
The fourth principle is also relevant to the case study that deals with patient’s dignity
and respect. In this type of recovery, interaction with the mentally ill patient is respectful,
courteous and involves honest communication (health.gov.au, 2013). Recovery is based on
considering the sensitivity of each individual and respecting their beliefs and values of life.
Mary respected Jeremy despite of his illness considering him an important part of her family.
Even the children engaged with him actively in communication. This made Jeremy feel
empowered as he was getting attention to his needs, choices, and belief system. He felt his

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dignity was maintained as he played equal role in family as father and husband. His opinions
were respected giving him the feeling of autonomy a measure of recovery (Shanks et al.,
2013).
Using the National Recovery Framework the essay illustrated the Jeremy’s recovery
from schizophrenia. He was empowered by his wife Mary and rectifying his thought process
made him take healthy decisions. Eventually he gained the confidence to return back to the
pop-music industry. It was a commendable journey of 20 years of lived experience with
mental illness. Jeremy is still seeking treatment. He is yet to find many more answers to life.
He was engaged in good communication system, support and empowerment process, which
made him optimistic about life a measure of good recovery orientation process (Williams et
al., 2017)
It can be concluded from the case study of Jeremy Oxley, that the mental health
services need to incorporate these recovery principles when treating the mentally ill patient.
The patient centered approach is the holistic approach as demonstrated by Mary in the video.
Instead of solely relying on medication, she also collaborated with the clinicians. Thus,
National Recovery Framework guides mental health professionals to design care plan that
deals with language of hope, self management of illness, and committed nursing. There is a
need of right conjugation of services, supports and treatments. The life of Jeremy Oxley is
inspiring in the sense that it is not impossible to recover from complex mental health
conditions.

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References
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