Greater Good South Africa

The Friends of Valkenberg Trust’s Programme Manager, Sandra Matthew, looks at the concept of recovery for people with mental health issues and discovers the power of a deeply personal process of change.

Pat Deegan, PhD, is a psychologist and mental health activist in America. She also has schizophrenia. She writes powerfully about her own experience of the “dehumanizing effects of hospitalization” where who she was as a person was ignored as the focus of treatment was placed on symptoms and diagnosis.

One of the benefits of the volunteer led groups run by the Friends of Valkenberg is that our focus is not on diagnosis and treatment plans. While the groups are designed to partner with Hospital staff in helping people recover from their illness, the focus is more on person to person support than measured outcomes.

The concept of recovery is a powerful one. William Anthony of the American Centre for Psychiatric Rehabilitation describes it as a deeply personal process of change aiming at a way of living a life that is satisfying, hopeful and makes a contribution, even with the limitations caused by illness.”

We are reminded though, that recovery is not an intervention, which professionals (or volunteers) “do” to people. It is service users that “do” recovery and our role as people working in the field of mental health is to work alongside those who are ill, helping them to find their own path to recovery.

Why should we believe that recovery is possible? The evidence about the prospects for people diagnosed with a severe mental illness is encouraging. At a recent mental health congress, Denise Grobelaar, a local psychologist, quoted a published literature review from Davidson and colleagues (2009) comparing results from a large number of studies. They established that twenty-five to sixty-five percent of people diagnosed with mental illness will improve significantly over time, resulting in outcomes ranging from mild impairment to full recovery. But patients are not told about the possibilities of recovery because professionals and others are too scared to give people false hope.

There are some important concepts in this view of recovery: 

People need to have HOPE that they may be able to recover, they need to regain a sense of CONTROL over their lives and they need the OPPORTUNITY to be a valued member of and contribute to their communities. 

There are many instances each week of where the Friends of Valkenberg is partnering with Valkenberg Hospital staff to support patients on their journey of recovery.  We hope to grow our understanding of this concept in order to support people at Valkenebrg in the best way possible, while remembering Deegans’ plea: "There is a person in here".

For more information or to support their work, visit the Friends of Valkenberg Trust website or contact them on 021 440 3126 or