Making sense of madness: perspectives on experience, treatment and recovery

In Australia, treatment for people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia is framed around the idea of recovery. What recovery means is understood in different ways. This paper examines findings from a qualitative study to see how people diagnosed with schizophrenia who have had long stays in psychiatric hospitals understand their own experience of, and recovery from, mental illness. The paper beings by discussing the concept of recovery, and identifies different ways in which recovery is understood in contemporary mental health practice. After introducing the current study, it describes how participants recounted their own experience, their views about treatment, and what they imagine recovery to be. The paper concludes by considering these participants’ views in relation to those of their treating clinicians, family members, and support workers.