Reflective Essay on Psychotic Disorder
Assessment task 2: Reflective essay regarding the personal recovery for people living with a psychotic disorder
Topic: Reflective essay regarding the personal recovery for people living with a psychotic disorder
Intent: In this assessment, you will learn about the differences between clinical and personal recovery and therapeutic communication that fosters personal recovery for people who experience psychotic disorders
Task: Part one: explain the differences between clinical and personal mental health recovery and discuss how personal recovery can enhance the wellbeing of people who experience psychotic disorders.
Part two: reflect on how you, as a future registered nurse, can use therapeutic communication skills (e.g. active listening, probing, empathic responding) to assist a consumer living with the effects of a psychotic disorder identify their strengthens and embark on a personal recovery journey. Include no more than two examples of communication skills in your answer.
Support your explanation and reflections with peer-reviewed articles, including nursing literature.
Sample Reflective Essay on Psychotic Disorder
Introduction
Psychotic disorder is currently a significant health challenge affecting many people across the globe. It is estimated that 4.5 per 1000 individuals in Australia seek psychiatric care services for psychotic disorders (Thomas et al., 2016). Different antipsychotic treatments have been administered to patients. However, personal recovery has become the most critical mental health measure for people suffering from the disease. It encompasses the ability of an individual to have a fulfilling life regardless of the mental disability symptoms. Personal recovery can be facilitated by the formation of relationships between people with shared experiences (Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, 2013). The mechanism prioritizes individualized and meaningful goals of treatment, thus facilitating critical changes in people’s attitudes, values, goals, feelings, and life experiences (Bejerholm & Roe, 2018). The paper discusses the factors that differentiate clinical and personal mental health recovery mechanisms. It explains the way personal recovery improves the well-being of patients with psychotic disorders. Finally, I reflect on how to utilize therapeutic communication skills like active listening and probing skills to help clients suffering from psychotic disorders discover their strengths and begin steps for personal recovery.
Part One
The Differences Between Clinical and Personal Mental Health Recovery
Clinical recovery aims at eliminating symptoms of mental disorder through the use of clinical treatments such as antipsychotic medication. It focuses on alleviating symptoms to restore a person to his or her state of health (Van Eck et al., 2018). Thus, the basis for clinical recovery is the remission of symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and disorganisation to avoid interference with people’s behaviour (Chan et al., 2018). Clinical recovery is governed by social functions impacting an individual. However, personal recovery focuses on enabling an individual to live a meaningful life based on their wishes when experiencing symptoms of mental health disorders. Personal recovery is a highly individualised mechanism for assisting people with mental disorders to change their attitudes, values, and feelings. As a result, they can adopt new perspectives to life, coping skills, and roles to recover and live a life full of hope and satisfaction (Brown & Kandirikirira, 2007). Individual discovery facilitates a person’s thought development, the formation of meaning, and adoption of habits and skills to have pleasant feelings and experiences amid the severe effects of mental illness.
Clinical recovery ensures that symptoms are mild with limited intensity to enhance functionality. It seeks to restore people’s social functioning by getting rid of the symptoms limiting cognitive abilities. As a result, clinical recovery measures are initiated to enable patients to get back to their everyday lives. However, personal recovery focuses on developing a new meaning for people to experience favorable growth in their lives amid the severe impacts of mental disorder symptoms (Leamy et al., 2011). Clinical recovery has emerged from mental health experts and reiterates the utilization of clinical treatments to eliminate severe psychiatric disorder symptoms. It involves the strengthening of mental health and restoration of an individual’s psychological status using counseling and therapeutic procedures. However, personal recovery emerges from the knowledge of persons with lived experience of psychological disorders (O’hagan, 2001). It reiterates the improvement of the living outcomes of people experiencing adverse symptoms.
How Personal Recovery Can Improve the Well-Being of Individuals with Psychotic Disorders
Personal recovery aims at enhancing people’s psychological well-being irrespective of the psychotic disorder symptoms. Individuals can start their recovery journey when actively engaged in hope-supporting relationships to walk away from their continued struggles. Individuals in self-recovery can develop a positive identity amid their suffering, thus self-managing their psychotic conditions (Slade, 2010). As a result, the patients can rebuild their lives amid the suffering related to mental disorders leading to a positive recovery. Persons suffering from psychotic disorders are capable of living a productive life full of satisfaction (Van Eck et al., 2018). They can develop values that make life more meaningful and enable the achievement of goals (Thomas et al., 2016). Thus, personal recovery can develop new meaning and purpose among persons with psychotic disorders leading to their continued growth beyond the severe impacts of the mental illness.
The personal recovery journey depends on various significant factors such as hope, empowerment, goals, and self-identity. Individuals focus on having a pleasant life by adopting positive attitudes and emotions. As a result, they can adopt critical skills required to prolong their lives and improve pleasures amid their suffering from mental health problems (Slade, 2010). Personal recovery fosters an engaged life experience where individuals recognize their strengths to live a fulfilling life. For example, they can use personal strengths to re-craft their work, relationships, life skills, and love. Personal recovery reiterates the concept of connectedness, which encompasses the impact of interpersonal relationships on psychological health (Bifarin & Jones, 2018). The self-recovery journey is expected to nurture people’s relationships and create new avenues for establishing new social connections (Ewart et al., 2016). As a result, persons with psychotic disorders can find a meaningful life by building critical connections with people and their surroundings to achieve important life goals.
Personal recovery utilizes lived experiences to restore people’s hope and optimism. Thus, individuals suffering from a psychotic disorder can be hopeful and optimistic that recovery is possible amid the presenting symptoms and catastrophic impacts. The concept is also pivotal in facilitating stress management. For instance, it recognizes the connection between stress levels and psychotic disorder symptoms. As a result, a patient can discover the prevalent stressors and identify the coping strategies during the personal recovery journey (Thomas et al., 2016). Personal recovery also establishes the link between people’s physical and mental health (Ewart et al., 2016). Thus, persons with a psychotic disorder can be empowered to make critical changes in their lives, such as dietary patterns, sleep, and drug abuse, to achieve self-recovery from their psychological conditions.
Part Two
How to Use Therapeutic Communication Skills to Assist Clients with A Psychotic Disorder to Identify Strengths in The Personal Recovery Journey
A registered nurse plays a pivotal role in assisting clients with psychotic disorders to discover significant strengths that can be used during the personal recovery journey. I aim at establishing a significant therapeutic relationship with my clients during my function as a future registered nurse. Practical communication skills will be essential in improving my involvement with patients to assist them in the recovery journey (Sacks et al., 2005). Thus, I will seek to maintain a high level of therapeutic alliance with my clients by using probing and active listening skills.
I will use active listening skills to assist patients in identifying their strengths and embarking on their personal recovery journey. I will give the patients the chance to talk without unnecessary interference to create a positive therapeutic effect (Morrissey & Callaghan, 2011). I will offer my full attention both physically, psychologically, and emotionally to give people adequate time to express their feelings. I will ensure that I provide appropriate conditions that encourage the patients to tell their story. For example, I will provide a quiet space that is free from any disturbance to listen keenly to the patients’ responses.
As a registered nurse, I will listen to my clients to understand their messages and needs and assist them in defining their strengths to begin their personal recovery process. I will turn out my internal distractions, including the thoughts on what the clients are expected to say (Stickley & Freshwater, 2006). I will refrain from judging the patients and reflecting messages through verbal paraphrasing to listen attentively to get the messages from the clients’ perspectives. Thus, I will avoid any prejudgments and negative prejudice that may hinder the development of an effective therapeutic alliance with the client.
I will utilize different verbal and non-verbal skills cues to listen actively to the client. I will ask the patient to elaborate on their experiences, beliefs, and experiences. I seek to adopt continuation prompts such as “please continue,” “Kindly say more about this,” and “Go on.” I will demonstrate a clear interest in the client’s message by maintaining eye contact (Morrissey & Callaghan, 2011). I will nod my head to encourage the clients to continue telling their stories concerning their experiences.
I will use probing skills to assist my patients in recognizing their strengths and beginning their self-recovery journey. I will use open-ended questions to encourage my clients to open up and share their stories without any limitations (Morrissey & Callaghan, 2011). For example, the open questions will enable me to explore the clients’ experiences to identify their strengths and start the journey towards recovery. I will utilize cognitive questions to explore their thoughts and beliefs (Rosenberg & Gallo-Silver, 2011). I also seek to design affective questions to gain insights into my clients’ feelings, attitudes, and affects. I will explore my clients’ behaviors by administering behavioral questions. Furthermore, I will ask one question at a time to avoid confusing and overwhelming the clients. I will avoid leading questions to enable my clients to open up and share stories based on their experiences and perspectives. I seek to ensure that the questions are adequately timed to obtain proper responses from the clients.
Conclusion
The psychotic disorder presents significant health challenges to several persons across the globe. Different strategies, such as clinical and personal recovery, have been explored to address the condition. The clinical recovery emphasizes the reduction of symptoms and enabling individuals to restore their previous health and well-being. The intervention emerges from the expertise of various mental health professionals who seek to use therapeutic procedures to eliminate psychotic disorder symptoms. However, personal recovery intervention emerges from the lived experiences of persons with mental illnesses. The concept recognizes that people can recover while experiencing symptoms. It focuses on ensuring that people create a meaningful and satisfying life by adopting coping skills and relationships with others. Personal recovery is essential in enabling individuals with psychotic disorders to enhance their well-being by being involved in hope-supporting relationships. Patients can be empowered to identify strengths such as connectedness to overcome symptoms and establish a meaningful life. I will listen actively to my patients by maintaining eye contacts, refraining from prejudgments, and avoiding verbal paraphrasing. I will use practical probing skills, such as administering open-ended questions to explore the client’s feelings, experiences, and beliefs.
References
Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council. (2013). A national framework for recovery-oriented mental health services: Policy and theory. https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/a-national-framework-for-recovery-oriented-mental-health-services-policy-and-theory
Bejerholm, U., & Roe, D. (2018). Personal recovery within positive psychiatry. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 72(6), 420-430. https://doi.org/10.1080/08039488.2018.1492015
Bifarin, O. O., & Jones, S. (2018). Embedding recovery-based approaches into mental health nurse training. British Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 7(5), 234-240.
Brown, W., & Kandirikirira, N. (2007). Recovering mental health in Scotland: Report on a narrative investigation of mental health recovery. Scottish Recovery Network.
Chan, R. C., Mak, W. W., Chio, F. H., & Tong, A. C. (2018). Flourishing with psychosis: a prospective examination on the interactions between clinical, functional, and personal recovery processes on well-being among individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 44(4), 778-786.
Ewart, S. B., Bocking, J., Happell, B., Platania-Phung, C., & Stanton, R. (2016). Mental health consumer experiences and strategies when seeking physical health care: a focus group study. Global Qualitative Nursing Research, 3.
Leamy, M., Bird, V., Le Boutillier, C., Williams, J., & Slade, M. (2011). A conceptual framework for personal recovery in mental health: a systematic review and narrative synthesis. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 199(6), 445-452.
Morrissey, J., & Callaghan, P. (2011). Communication skills for mental health nurses. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
O’hagan, M. (2001). Recovery competencies for New Zealand mental health workers. Mental Health Commission. Retrieved from https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/assets/ResourceFinder/recovery-competencies-for-new-zealand-mental-health-workers-march-2001.pdf.
Rosenberg, S., & Gallo-Silver, L. (2011). Therapeutic communication skills and student nurses in the clinical setting. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 6(1), 2-8.
Sacks, S., Ries, R. K., Ziedonis, D. M., & Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. (2005). Substance abuse treatment for persons with co-occurring disorders.
Slade, M. (2010). Mental illness and well-being: the central importance of positive psychology and recovery approaches. BMC health Services Research, 10(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-10-26
Stickley, T., & Freshwater, D. (2006). The art of listening in the therapeutic relationship. Mental Health Practice, 9(5). 10.7748/mhp2006.02.9.5.12.c1899
Thomas, N., Farhall, J., Foley, F., Leitan, N. D., Villagonzalo, K. A., Ladd, E., … & Rossell, S. L. (2016). Promoting personal recovery in people with persisting psychotic disorders: development and pilot study of a novel digital intervention. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 7, 196. https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffpsyt.2016.00196
Van Eck, R. M., Burger, T. J., Vellinga, A., Schirmbeck, F., & de Haan, L. (2018). The relationship between clinical and personal recovery in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 44(3), 631-642. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbx088