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The Relational Essence of Natural Recovery: Natural Recovery as Relational Practice

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Abstract

This article offers a relational practice view to conceptualize natural recovery from addiction concerns. Through the lens of a social practice framework, the processes of natural recovery are seen as specific relational trajectories or transformative pathways involving relationships between humans, non-humans, communities, and philosophies, rather than as a process of symptom elimination. We argue that this kind of conceptualization of recovery acknowledges the many people who manage to recover without treatment or professional help, known as natural recovery. In addiction practices, we can see the dominance of pathologizing interpersonal patterns (PIPs) that maintain the addictive process. Over the course of recovery, we can see the dominance of healing interpersonal patterns (HIPs) that support the recovery process. To utilize this understanding as practitioners, we need to help nourish the platforms where the healing interactional patterns in daily life might be supported and maintained. While this reduces power from the position of “expert” in the biomedical model, it also provides more optimism, as members of the social network we can directly contribute to those healing interpersonal patterns—by the way we relate to, support, and engage with other people.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Our Lady of the Lake University, 411 SW 24th Street, San Antonio, TX, 78207, USA

    Tanya Mudry

  2. Spolek Narativ, V Aleji 114/31, 620 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Pavel Nepustil

  3. Department for Education and Lifelong Learning, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491, Trondheim, Norway

    Ottar Ness

  4. Department for Health, Social and Welfare Studies, University College of Southeast Norway, P.O.Box 7053, 3007, Drammen, Norway

    Ottar Ness

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  1. Tanya Mudry
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  2. Pavel Nepustil
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  3. Ottar Ness
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Correspondence to Pavel Nepustil.

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Mudry, T., Nepustil, P. & Ness, O. The Relational Essence of Natural Recovery: Natural Recovery as Relational Practice. Int J Ment Health Addiction 17, 191–205 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-0010-x

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