RECOVERY + TREATMENT

FOUR DIMENSIONS OF RECOVERY + DEVELOPING A RECOVERY PLAN from MentalHealth.gov

1. Health: Make informed, healthy choices that support physical and emotional well-being.
2. Home: Have a stable and safe place to live.
3. Purpose: Engage in meaningful daily activities, such as a job or school, volunteering, caring for your family, or being creative. Work for independence, income, and resources to participate in society.
4. Community: Build relationships and social networks that provide support.

• Identify your goals for achieving wellness
• Specify what you can do to reach those goals
  
• Include daily activities as well as longer term goals
  
• Track any changes in your mental health problem
  
• Identify triggers or other stressful events that can make you feel worse, and help you learn how to manage them
  

TREATMENT

Psychotherapy/talking therapies:

• Psychological approach to treating mental illness
• Examples: cognitive behavioural therapy, exposure therapy, and dialectical behaviour therapy
• Psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and primary care physicians carry out these treatments
• Can help people understand the root of their mental illness and start to work on more healthful thought patterns that support everyday living and reduce the risk of isolation and self-harm

Medication:

• Examples: antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anxiolytic drugs
  
• Works by boosting the body's absorption of feel-good chemicals (such as serotonin) from the brain. Other drugs can boost the overall levels of these chemicals or prevent their degradation.
  
• Cannot cure mental disorders, but can improve symptoms and help a person resume social interaction and a normal routine

Self-help

• Making changes to the lifestyle
  
• Resolve issues with personal relationships
  
• Taking time away from work
• Eating a balanced, nutritious diet
• Sleeping more
• Reducing alcohol intake
• Relaxation techniques
  
• Mindfulness
  
• Meditation
• Deep breathing
• Having a support network
  
• Self-help groups, or close friends and family
  

Strength-based therapy

• Focuses on finding your strengths, acting on them, and learning how to accept what is wrong
  
• Combines positivity, social psychology, preventive measures, solution-focused methods, and personal development
• Involves:
  
• Narrating stories about resilience and positivity for inspiration
  
• Family support and individual supportive counselling
• Case management which focuses on understanding the capabilities of the person
• Solution-focused therapies (e.g. conversations, objective tests, and group sessions)

Quality of Life therapy

• Motivates the person to follow their dreams and finding a deeper meaning of self-satisfaction
  
• Helps clients discover their goals in life

Hope Therapy

• Aims to promote a hopeful attitude in clients to build self-esteem and confidence, and provide better clarity of their goals
  
• Works on the theory of hope
• Includes four steps:
  
• Finding hope
  
• Establishing a connection with it
  
• Enhancing it
  
• Following it
  

Well-being therapy

• Promotes happiness by letting clients identify their thought blocks
• Uses techniques like:
  
• Encouraging positive actions such as self-expression, journaling, active communication, and an overall healthy lifestyle
  
• Growing a positive attitude towards the self by accepting, forgiving, and integrating
• Planning practical ways to overcome negative thoughts
• Identifying negative thoughts that cause trouble by active communication with a therapist or counsellor
• Writing about significant life experiences and the emotions connected to it