Experienced Professionals Helping With Recovery From "Psychosis"

We have hosted many Recovery House projects over the years, with our first happening in 2001 in Gloucester, when Ron and Karen were Directors of a company called Keepwell Ltd. A psychiatrist asked us if we could provide a residential recovery programme for a person for a year; she did not want to diagnose this person and thought that we could help, with local social services covering the costs. Providing this care was a steep learning curve, especially with regard to hiring staff and setting up policies. We kept the house going for the year but burned our fingers financially. However, seeing that person thrive and grow was the most important factor.

Here is what Maria said about her stay:
“Hi, my name is Maria, and I was the first client in Ron and Karen’s first Recovery House in Gloucester, England. The first difference from the other residential placements I’ve had was that this was a RECOVERY HOUSE! There was a general expectation that, with everyone’s help, I would get better and be able to recover my life, and not just live in an acute psychiatric ward or institution with no hope for the future.

“I was allowed to choose my own room and it was decorated and furnished to my wishes. I had a key support worker, but really all the support workers were essential in one area or another, and they all became my friends and confidantes. I did intense work with Ron and Karen, and true to his word Ron brought in other therapists if he felt they would be helpful.   

“I was encouraged and helped to have a social life and did work experience and adult education classes. If I had self-harmed or was feeling totally lousy mentally, I did not get out of doing things, I was just supported more to get to the class or whatever I was meant to be doing. The whole experience taught me that I could live again, that I was worthwhile to have around and that I did not have to let my mental health dictate my life.”

We moved to the Isle of Lewis in 2008, and in 2011 moved to a larger house to accommodate our children. The very small cottage that we had used became our office and the idea of a recovery house grew, and in the winter of that year our first resident arrived.

We wanted to prove that what we said in our training worked in practice and we certainly achieved this – not with everyone who came, but those who engaged fully in the process are now living totally different lives.

We decided to use our profits from training to offer personalised recovery breaks for individuals wishing to engage with their emotional, spiritual and mental health issues – mainly people who are recovering from “psychosis” or seen as becoming “chronic”, even though some were relatively young people. They would travel to the house and stay for up to three months.

We acquired considerable experience in assisting people to develop and pursue their recovery agendas, finding that taking time away from their normal routines of life was a very powerful way of beginning and/or reactivating the journey to recovery from psychosis. Although the house was free of charge, we did see how important reciprocity was for a resident’s self-esteem and learning that they had skills to offer us, so people helped in the garden and it was their responsibility to feed the animals, which included poultry and pigs.

A family association near Bologna asked us if we would be interested in running a recovery house project for them. After a series of meetings and several visits, we found an old farmhouse that was suitable and big enough to run the three-month project during the summer months. We interviewed participants and gathered 10 people to start the course, employing two workers and several people also volunteered to work in the project.

From the start, we did things differently, always involving the families in the programme. Our philosophy has constantly been that what we do is educational as opposed to merely therapy. We split the project into three months, with Karen going out for the first month to set the house up and in those first four weeks, running sessions on recovery from psychosis, choice, ownership, people, self, spirituality and trauma.

We encourage people to look at their own story, and what we did with the residents we replicated in evening sessions with the families, with an emphasis on concentrating on their own recovery journeys. Paul Baker came in for month and along with peer who had stayed at the recovery house in Scotland, he concentrated on looking at people’s lost skills. He helped people to ride bikes and drive again. There was also a garden project, which people spent time in every day. In month three, Ron came and took over from Paul and Karen joined him for the last couple of weeks.

These were intense weeks, during which we concentrated on what had happened to the residents, what they wanted to change and how they were going to do that. The project was full of love and hope and ended with a graduation ceremony and party evening. Two of the staff later went on to set up a recovery house project in Trieste, which ran for a couple of years. There was a research project undertaken that showed positive outcomes.

We were asked by Richmond Fellowship, based in Western Australia, to help set up a Recovery House project for them. It was loosely based on the Italian Recovery House project but was different insofar as it was set in a suburban environment. There was an intense group format, with people working every weekday in groups. This is where we started to use sculpting and employed an alternative practitioner. The project was left for Richmond to run and to this day there is a version of the recovery house still going.

For one year, we also ran our own recovery house in Perth. With a small core team, the project was both residential and for day clients. Based very much on group process and splitting the day into what Ron called the “mars bar approach” – work, rest, play – this project sadly came to an end due to Ron’s ill health.

Amitola communities in York, UK, currently has two recovery houses based around our group format. They received training from us over two years and have received glowing CQC reports.