Recovering from psychosis: Personal learning, strategies and experiences

The abstract of an article published in the February 2009 issue of Psychosis:

By Ian Sparrowhawk

This paper is about the experience of recovering from psychotic breakdown over a 10-year period. This period saw the author gradually rebuilding a functioning life and identity. This had led to him establishing a strong professional reputation and career in the field of economic regeneration. This paper emphasises the active recovery strategies, psychological techniques and conceptual understandings of mental illness which have been found helpful in rebuilding a functioning life and identity after psychosis. The author was sectioned and hospitalised in 1996, suffering from acute paranoid delusions. There then followed a long-term “recovery period”, which is the focus of this paper. It outlines an approach to recovery which emphasises:

• waiting;

• avoidance if necessary;

• cumulative desensitisation;

• gradual expansion of the comfort zone;

• the insufficiency of reason; and

• respecting the integrity of unusual ideas.

The paper is meant to be of value to those suffering mental distress (with practical strategies), whilst also advancing the general understanding of psychotic breakdown from the survivor's perspective.

Keywords: first-person account; interpersonal relationships; paranoia; philosophical issues; prognosis

Posting of this abstract is for the purposes of research into psychosis.