Assignment 1 One page APA format paper that reviews the arti

Assignment #1:   One page APA format paper that reviews the article “Recovery The Lived Experience” by Patricia Deegan, PhD.

Solution

The main focus of the paper \"Recovery The Livid Experience\" by Patricia Deegan is to differentiate between \'recovery\' and \'rehabilitation\' of disabled patients. The purpose of writing the paper is to bring to light that while many disabled patients are rehabilitated to a place where all their physical needs are taken care of, the emotional needs which are the foremost pillar of recovery are still unmet.

She defines recovery as the improvement of a challenged patient to the level where he or she becomes self-motivated, hopeful, responsible and self-dependent in if not all but majority of the areas. Current rehabilitation assists to address the physical needs of the patients while true recovery is to make the patient more self-confident, hopeful, willing and responsible.

The author who has herself suffered from a mental disorder, schizophrenia, explains that how emotional support, love, care and most importantly hope led her to recovery and self-confidence. She underlines the fact that both physically and mentally disabled patients undergo the same cycle of recovery comprising of three phases: 1) Denial 2) Despair and anguish 3) Hope

She hence insists that physically and mentally disabled patients should not be isolated from each other. To prove this point, she compares her journey of recovery to a man\'s who was paraplegic. She traces down how both of them initially denied the fact that they were disabled for life. The acceptance of this fact later on instilled anguish, despair and hopelessness in their lives. They gave up on everything and became completely dependent on others to perform their daily activities. However the love, care, support and hopefulness of their families instilled an emotional confidence in them that they could still lead a better life. They started doing their smaller daily tasks. The man shaved himself; read books talked with the counselors while the lady started going for shopping, took responsibility of her own medicines. These simple tasks day by day infused courage in them and they became hopeful, willing and self-confident. They both started working and took charge of their own career and are self-dependent today.

The author also defines recovery as the acceptance of suffering which leads to an inner peace with the approval that this pain is taking them forward in their lives. Recovery is hence is more than a process. It is an attitude and a style of managing challenges of life.

The author also puts forward certain suggestions which could be beneficial to the recovery of the patients in the rehabilitation programs:

1) Enhance flexibility in the rehabilitation rules and expectations: The current rehabilitation programs have rigid rules and guidelines and hence if a patient fails at any step of the program, he or she has to begin from the entry level. This approach should be modified to introduce the try/fail mechanism. The patient should be allowed to enter the level from where he/she failed. This would increase their confidence level.

2) Offer wide variety of rehabilitation programs: Although most of the patients undergo the common cycle of denial, anguish and despair, the stimulus which can generate hope in them is different. Hence various rehabilitation programs should be introduced along with self-help groups as resources to recovery. Also, cooperative work setting group can help them identify their strengths.

3) Hiring of disabled people in rehabilitation programs: Recovered or even slightly recovered patients can act as role models for other recovering patients.

4) Change in Staff Attitude: The staff in rehabilitation programs distinguishes themselves from the disabled. The staff should be made to realize that even they themselves must have undergone such despair in their lives so that they could embrace and accept the experiences of the disabled.