Resilience and Resistance on the Road to Recovery in Mental Health

  • Anne O’Donnell Co-ordinator of a mental health user/survivor led training project LEARN, part of CAPS Independent Advocach
  • Mae Shaw Mae was until recently a Senior Lecturer in Community Education at the University of Edinburgh.

Abstract


This article explores the relationship between policy discourses framed around notions of resilience, the influence of the mental health user movement, and the institutionalisation of the recovery model in mental health programmes. This has particular relevance for community education practice. It argues that a spurious consensus has been constructed which conceals competing interests, contested meanings and contentious politics.  It concludes by considering what hope there is for reclaiming recovery as a social and political practice which is capable of resisting those neoliberal austerity agendas through which it is currently constructed. Although it is written from the Scottish context, it will certainly have relevance elsewhere. 

Author Biography

Anne O’Donnell, Co-ordinator of a mental health user/survivor led training project LEARN, part of CAPS Independent Advocach

Published
05-Jun-2016
How to Cite
O’Donnell, A. and Shaw, M. (2016) “Resilience and Resistance on the Road to Recovery in Mental Health”, Concept, 7(1), p. 18. Available at: http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/article/view/2483 (Accessed: 28March2024).
Section
Articles