Recovery is “A deeply personal, unique process of changing one’s attitudes, values, feelings, goals, skills and roles. It is a way of living a satisfying, hopeful and contributing life even with the limitation caused by illness.” (Anthony, 1993). Recovery-oriented practices are empowering approaches that embrace person-centered alternatives for promoting hope, self-determination, self-management, wellbeing and social inclusion of people in face of mental distress. Such humanistic approaches have been gaining international credence among mental health service users, service providers, professionals and policy makers in recent years.
Grounding on the recovery paradigm, this course aims to walk you through the re-authoring elements of recovery, and the latest knowledge on recovery-oriented practices for mental health counselling and the promotion of wellbeing. It will provide you with the evidence- and experienced-based knowledge of non-pharmacological approaches and postmodern practices including story-telling, narrative therapy, the strengths model assessment and intervention, Wellness Recovery Action Plan etc. You will be guided to see how these practices are not only applicable to counseling in mental health context but also to working with people coping with other issues and challenges in life. You will also have the opportunities to learn and practise the various conversation maps of narrative therapy through experiential exercises during the course.