Psychiatric Recovery

The concept of recovery has become more prominent in mental health nursing (Bird et al. 2013). Traditional beliefs about the course of treatment have been being challenged by consumer perspectives (Bird et al. 2013). Psychiatric rehabilitation has come to mean having a meaningful and satisfying life, whether the symptoms are ongoing or recurring (Bird et al. 2013). In this essay, the meaning of recovery, whether therapeutic relationships have effects on psychiatric rehabilitation will be discussed.

The meaning of recovery for patients can be different from person to person, just like everyone has different perspectives about their goals and the meaning of hope (Evans et al. 2016). Recovery for a person who diagnosed with a mental illness may

2016). Although nursing is not commonly deemed as a powerful profession, power imbalance always comes to mind when thinking about therapeutic relationships in nursing (Bauckham 2016). Patients often feel disempowered or that they do not have rights to give opinions about their treatment because some were required or forced to take medication or treated in hospital when these were not unnecessary (Moxham et al. 2018).
Empowerment may be considered as a correction of the past mental health system, which clears the confusion about mental health care (Greenley, & Jacobson 2001). Indeed, the aim of empowering patients is helping them assume responsibility for themselves (Greenley, & Jacobson 2001). In nurse-client therapeutic relationships, empowerment is about letting patients get involved in decisions about their health care and assisting them to feel in control of their lives and mental health (Moxham et al. 2018). Achieving such goals, nurses encourage patients to collaborate actively in decision making, which leads to senses of that they can control over their own health and issues and having a life that they choose (Moxham et al.

2018). Therefore, developing a sense of identity is vital to people who are diagnosed with a mental illness. Identity is about what characterizes a person, who the person is, how the person views oneself and how others see the person (Moxham et al. 2018). Often patients who experience a mental illness doubt their identities and struggle to see themselves in the same way they did in the past (Moxham et al. 2018). Experiencing a mental illness can cause a person to feel challenged at identifying themselves, they might have self-defeating thoughts, like being not able to work properly or they would not be liked by others due to having a mental illness (Moxham et al. 2018). For nurses, this is important to help clients via therapeutic alliance to establish an understanding of their illness and treatments that they receive because the more a patient understands about his treatment, sickness and recovery, the larger the benefit and will be to the person's journey of recovery (Moxham et al.