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Recovery, Social Inclusion, and the Capability Approach in Mental Health

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Critical Perspectives on Mental Health

Introduction

The recovery movement arose from the struggles of people with mental health conditions, inside and outside of treatment, to reclaim the right to lead a self-determined life in the community of their choice (Davidson, 2016). In addition, there has been a growing body of longitudinal research that has called into question much of the conventional wisdom about the course and outcomes of mental health problems (Davidson, 2016). Once thought to be disabling conditions from which very few people would ever recover, mental health disorders have come to be seen as health conditions that many people can at least learn to manage over time, if not recover from fully. This research also has confirmed that many of the processes involved in recovery unfold over time outside of formal treatment settings (Davidson, 2016), with professional interventions playing a limited, if valuable, role.

The Recovery movement thus recognizes the right of people struggling with mental health problems to...

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Ness, O., Davidson, L., Oute, J., von Heimburg, D. (2022). Recovery, Social Inclusion, and the Capability Approach in Mental Health. In: Lester, J.N., O'Reilly, M. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Critical Perspectives on Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12852-4_53-1

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