Recovery as a journey of the heart

recognize the anatomical heart in all its them facts and figures and knowledge.
we would have to doubt this statement.
study, is nobody’s heart. It is a heart from the Middle English, to recognize.
mental health related disciplines are re- specific field of knowledge. They are re- heart; the heartless one; the cold heart; dents are not required to seek wisdom.
and idein which means to see the form joy; and the one who has lost heart.
essence of this heart. The human heart.
things, but they lack wisdom or the abil- P s y c h i at r i c R e h a b i l i t at i o n J o u r n a l Recovery as a Journey of the Heart tion. I was 18 years old. I asked the psy- ease called chronic schizophrenia. It is a disease that is like diabetes. If you take medications for the rest of your life and avoid stress, then maybe you can cope.
years later, those words still echo like a psychiatrist was telling me that my life, tial sense, is not an illness or disease.
that I aspired to were mere fantasies ac- ence this human being before all else.
this way, then the present loses its ori- goal is not normalization. The goal is to to be a question in search of an answer.
the question of the process of recovery.
that by virtue of our diagnosis the ques- larger ripples until every corner of aca- ence and clinical practice are affected.
W i n t e r 1 9 9 6 — V o l u m e 1 9 N u m b e r 3 wanting anything. If I didn’t want any- thing, then it couldn’t be taken away. If I didn’t try, then I wouldn’t have to un- and indifference. It is a time of having a dergo another failure. If I didn’t care, hardened heart. Of not caring anymore.
It is a time when we feel ourselves to be much came over to visit me and I didn’t sitting in a chair. As I conjure the image the first thing I can see are that girl’s see her shuffled, stiff, drugged walk.
was hard. I didn’t care about anything.
People come and people go. Peopleurge her to do things to help herself here is familiar to many of us. We recog- isolation, and lack of motivation. But if sists of this: At eight in the morning she search of wisdom we must dig deeper.
every day. She begins smoking cigarettes.
proof that time is passing and that fact, at least, is a relief. From 9 A.M. to noon nia? I think not. I believe that becoming she has lunch. At l P.M. she goes back to bed to sleep until 3 P.M. At that time she are at the brink of losing hope, adopt in and stares. Then she has dinner. Thenshe returns to the chair at 6 P.M. Finally it is 8 o’clock in the evening, the long Seligman’s (1975 ) work in the field of me or mattered to me. I had given up.
a problem, it was a solution. It was a so- P s y c h i at r i c R e h a b i l i t at i o n J o u r n a l Recovery as a Journey of the Heart he believed that all his efforts had failed and would continue to fail, he died.
Can a psychological state be lethal? I be- those of us with psychiatric disabilities follow the treatment teams’ instructions help; when we find that staff do not lis- will live; under what rules we will live, lowed back into it, etc. etc. etc., then a begins to settle over the human heart.
And in an effort to avoid the biologically ness, people with psychiatric disabilities of heart and attempt to stop caring. It is Of course, the great danger is that staff will fail to recognize the intensity of the danger is that the staff will simply say, W i n t e r 1 9 9 6 — V o l u m e 1 9 N u m b e r 3 cion), but of real choices. I am speaking mitting that I just might want to partici- goals you might want to pursue, etc.
mental patients and to try to see the in- reject, reject, and reject again these in- It is imperative that the instructors and must not fall into despair, feel like their today’s students to avoid these pitfalls.
is doing. Staff must avoid this trap. They must do what the person cannot yet do.
they are rejected over and over again.
istential struggle that is at the heart of see a person with a psychiatric disability thetic, and unmotivated. First I help the less can increase their sense of self effi- cacy by having access to information.
tude of what it is they are asking a per- rules, as well as having a say in the hir- hardened heart lies the breaking heart.
too long has been silenced. Finally, it is breaks? It is not a crazy thing to try to atric disability who is hard of heart, who maybe I, too, can break out of this hard- that this is a person who feels they have risk again. In any case, it is only the per- against the possibly lethal effects of pro- people it is imperative to create an envi- quality of life can get better for people P s y c h i at r i c R e h a b i l i t at i o n J o u r n a l Recovery as a Journey of the Heart tunities for improving their situation.
will in the hospital as well as the things atric disabilities as mental health profes- My journey of recovery is still ongoing.
port and I still use professional services cising a voice, opportunities for better- ing one’s life—these are the features of tive stance that is the hallmark of the re- mental health professionals must master.
that is precisely what I did. Starting with participant in my own recovery process.
a strong spirituality that really helped. I me. They kept inviting me to do things.
cart. But it was a beginning. And truly, it was through small steps like these that I even though the people around me did.
like being in the nightmare again . .
In retrospect, I know this was a wise de- dignation, played a big role in that tran- you’re labeled with chronic schizophre- been called, I had a vocation, and I kept nia!) I also remember that just after that lenges. It is not a perfectly linear jour- W i n t e r 1 9 9 6 — V o l u m e 1 9 N u m b e r 3 of just living, just staying quiet, resting that people with psychiatric disabilities nity to try and to fail and to try again. In people with psychiatric disabilities. Our failure if they are to be supportive of us.
job is to establish strong, supportive re- lationships with those we work with.
been psychiatrically labeled are organiz- ed while working in the human services.
health care, poor or non existent hous-ing, and to the indignities that so often come with psychiatric hospitalizationsincluding the barbaric use of restraint LaLime, W. (1990). Untitled speech used as and seclusion. We are sitting at the table policy makers to find alternatives to in- Humanistic Psychologist, 18(3), 301- Lefcourt, H. M. (1973). The function of the American Psychologist, 28, 417-425. Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development and death. ence of hearing voices that are distress- ing. Participants listen to the tape while about our experience and what helps.
strategies that help to control or elimi- funding from the Center for MentalHealth Services. We have developed

Source: http://toronto.cmha.ca/files/2012/11/Deegan1996-Recovery-Journey-of-the-Heart1.pdf