A Q-Sort Study: service user and trainee psychologists’ perspectives of recovery in a community-based project.

The concept of recovery in mental health has changed over time and reflects our increased understanding of the factors that are important to service users and mental health professionals in defining recovery. This thesis investigates service user and trainee psychologists’ perspectives of recovery in a community-based project. The first part of this thesis reviews the literature on the development of our understanding of recovery in mental health. The search strategy that was developed yielded 9 studies that met the inclusion criteria and a further 3 studies were added following a hand-search of relevant literature. Four themes were identified that charted the development of our understanding of recovery: i) Recovery over the past decade; ii) Changing Perceptions of Recovery; iii) The rise of service user involvement; and iv) New ways of providing services. The review identified that there was a move from a medical model towards a recovery based model. The second part of this thesis is a Q-methodological study that investigates service user and trainee psychologists’ perceptions of recovery in a community based project. The sample of 23 participants comprised 12 service users and 11 trainee clinical psychologists. Participants sorted 50 statements related to the process of recovery from mental health problems. A Centroid Factor Analysis revealed a 3 Factor Solution. Factor 1 was solely endorsed by trainee clinical psychologists and proposed that understanding and social support is the key to recovery. Factor 2 was solely endorsed by service-users and proposed that attending Growthpoint and medication was the key to recovery. Factor 3 was endorsed by both service-users and trainee psychologists and proposed that attending Growthpoint and personal growth was the key to recovery. A visual representation of the conceptual space is presented through the use of multidimensional scaling. An in depth interpretation of the factors is presented and the implications of the research are discussed. The third part of this thesis is a reflective paper whereby the author uses a narrative approach to compare her experience of recovery from diabetes to the experience of recovery from mental health problems. The author uses Q-Sort methodology to compare factor viewpoints that emerged from the Q-Sort analysis and combines this with the model of Reflective Practice developed by Atkins & Murphy (1994).