Social relationships as a decisive factor in recovering from severe mental illness

Recovery research often describes recovery from mental illness as a complex individual process. In this article a social perspective on recovery is developed.

To ascertain which factors people regard as decisive to their own recovery and what makes them beneficial.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 58 persons in Sweden who had recovered from severe mental illness. Interviews were qualitatively analyzed using grounded theory.

Three dimensions of contributing recovery factors were identified. Social relationships emerged as the core category throughout these dimensions.

The results show that recovery processes are social processes in which social relationships play a key role.