Recovery a Model or a Way of Being

1. “Recovery” – a Model or a Way of Being? Cathy O’Toole

2. Dr William Glasser MD Choice Theory/Reality Therapy/Lead Management Helen Glover – Recovery Orientated Mentoring Project (Enlightened Consultants) My experience… CEO Advance Employment Inc. DES specializing in Mental Health Director Business Services Community Rehabilitation Project – Townsville Mackay Medicare Local State President Qld Alliance for Mental Health My life experience as a CT/RT/LM journeying practitioner Acknowledgments

3. Mental Health has come of age in Australia... “Untreated mental illness can lead to disengagement, unemployment, family breakdown, substance abuse, homelessness and suicide, said Wayne Swan in delivering his Budget Speech to Parliament”. $2.2 Billion to Mental Health over 5 years. The question is will this injection of funds make a difference for those living with poor mental health who are trying to reclaim their lives and citizenship? Einstein (1879 – 1955) provides two provocative statements... “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction”. (Calaprice, A 2005, The new Quotable Einstein. Princeton, New Jersey,: Princeton University Press). Political Environment

4. Do we as mental health professionals assist a person in their personal recovery journey or do we just simply get in the way? Are we willing as mental health professionals to let go of being the expert in order to acknowledge the person with the lived experience as the expert? Do we mentor/facilitate/counsel in a manner that acknowledges & build’s a person’s self mastery, capacity and citizenship? Focus Questions

5. Authoring one’s own experience is a basic human right. In a moral world no one but the person in question has the status, the authority, under normal conditions, to decide what his/her experience means to them”. Shotter as quoted by Geekie (2004:149) Introduction

6. The shift from external determination to the internal realization is undoubtedly the major repositioning work, that mental health services and providers need to commit to if a new paradigm is to be fully realised...mental health care has increasingly acquired society’s authority to: “explain, categorise, treat, detain and prognose’ making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to let go of the dominant expert position in the lives of others”. Helen Glover in Press 2011 Introduction

7. At the heart of Dr. William Glasser’s Choice Theory, Reality Therapy, Lead Management is personal responsibility and the nurturing of meaningful relationships with those most important in our lives. It is in the very place where we find ourselves most uncomfortable that opportunities for meaningful learning and personal growth lies. Introduction

8. Connecting Habits… Listening Supporting Encouraging Negotiating Respecting Accepting Trusting/Safe Curious conversation that does not have an agenda . Genuine curiosity is always about the other - you are not the expert. Genuine curiosity requires a level of maturity that recognises self mastery in the other (language is critical). Ingredients for Transformation

9. Counseling with Reality Therapy as a Lead Manager from a Choice Theory practice - no agenda – when you don’t have an agenda you are not purporting to be the expert in someone else’s life. As Glasser says “when you know the answer you are not doing Reality Therapy”. Who are you trying to shift? If you are trying to shift the other then you are mostly likely coercing/Boss managing. Context

10. Not our ability to know more Our ability to be curious, to not know To be constantly reflecting on questions we need to ask both those we support and the service environments. The concept of recovery is not a theory or model. It is not owned by anyone, no one has created the concept. What is Recovery Based Practice?

11. The belief that people can reclaim a rightful place as a community member, despite any experience of mental illness/distress A social justice/human rights oriented movement e.g. gay/lesbian, black/ethnic rights. Not being seen as an objectified, exclusionary and discriminating experience to one of sameness and citizenship - same inherent rights, responsibilities, opportunities and expectations as everyone else. What is Recovery Based Practice?

12. How do we position ourselves in the lives of others?

13. How do we position ourselves in the lives of others?

15. Wand, Whip and Disabling Position = Boss Management Counsellor The Wand, The Whip & Disabling Position

16. How do we position ourselves in the lives of others?

18. Wonder and Enabling Position = Lead Management Counsellor. Recovery Oriented Practice creates environments of support that intentionally invite a person to be in executive control - helps people to recognise their self mastery, sense of discovery, their determination and sense of citizenship. The Wonder – Enabling Position

19. What would it take for mental health professionals to let go of being the expert in order to acknowledge the expertise in the other? What would you have to give up to position yourself in the “Wonder”? How do you mentor/facilitate/counsel in a manner that build’s the person’s self mastery and capacity to live a life of citizenship? Questions for Discussion

20. Star of Recovery Orientation Framework

21. Groups of three Counsellor Person Observer You are working with a person who lost his job 4 months ago. He is devastated and is experiencing feelings of deep hopelessness, as he believes he has let his family down. He was employed for 15 years, he had been very successful in his work. Things had been going really well in his life generally before he lost his job. Use curious questioning/reality therapy to assist the person to renegotiate his position within the dichotomy of Hope – Hopelessness. The Observer – look for questions that recognise expertise in the other and build capacity. Curious Conversation

22. Recovery is a process and not an end point or destination, despite many services attempting to create ‘destinations’ for people. Borg and Kristiansen (2004: 501) express recovery as a ‘concrete and practical process of gaining and maintaining more control over one’s life”. This requires much more of a continual ‘self – righting’ action versus an achievement or arrival at a destination point. It is when we lose our self –righting mechanism that we become stuck. Self Righting

23. If we lose our ability to influence the things that stand in our way, we become “stuck” - we rely more and more on someone else to ‘right us’. Risks to a person’s capacity to self-right occurs when the support person sees their role as managing, supporting, fixing, changing the person rather than assisting the person in their self-righting efforts. The key is in the how the support is provided, i.e., does the support a person receives help them to recognise and reignite their self-righting mechanism or does it result in the mechanism atrophying further. Self Righting

24. Self Righting

25. Groups of three Counsellor Person Observer The person that you are working with has been successfully rebuilding a damaged relationship with a family member. However, over the past few weeks there have been many strong differences of opinion. This has left the person feeling that they are a failure at building relationships and that there is no use in trying any more. As the counsellor your role is to assist the person in their endeavour to self right. The Observer – look for questions that enable the person to self right and recognise their mastery. Self Righting Conversation

26. Who owns the Goal/Want?

27. Groups of three Counsellor Person Observer You are working with a person who wants to move from a boarding house (long term arrangement) into a flat of her own. Have a curious conversation to identify the boulders that are between the person and their goal/want i.e. move into her own flat. Assist the person to develop a plan to address one of their boulders. Evaluate the conversation with the person when finished – does she believe that she has left the conversation with increased skill/mastery and capacity? The Observer – what was the focus of the conversation? The goal or the boulder? Curious Conversation

28.