Hi
I’m a newly qualified clinical psychologist currently in AMH, a new poster on the forum, and relatively new to Community Psychology as an entity, although I have held the values and ideas that now draw me to it for some years.
I would like to ask the forum for their comments and experiences in relation Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) which is both a tool and an approach that is being promoted across mental health in the community, acute settings and in prisons across the Midlands and some other areas. For those who are uninitiated http://www.mentalhealthrecovery.com/, but essentially it works officially on 5 principles for ‘Wellness’ in 'recovering from a breakdown': Hope, Self-Responsibility, Self-Assertiveness, Education and Support from 5 people. There has been some nod toward 2 additional considerations of ‘power’ and ‘context’, but this is not part of the original model and is not well understood or integrated. It seems to perform a similar role to Care Plans and Relapse Prevention plans, but encompasses more than just mental health and is owned by the person.
I have recently been to a training session on WRAP and am being asked to comment on it as an approach within or alongside psychology and AMH generally – how it fits. It is being sold as a vast improvement on current practise due to the ‘handing responsibility and ownership to the service user’ and ‘collaborative approach’. Psychologists and Psychiatrists here are being asked to lead on its implementation as we become a ‘Recovery led NHS trust’. Comments that I (et al) made to the training facilitator were the following:
· Use of the term ‘Wellness’ – implies illness and does nothing to move away from the medical model.
· Perpetuation of individualised notions of mental distress through ‘self-responsibility’ and ‘self-assertiveness’ – no understanding of whether someone has the power to improve or maintain their ‘wellness’ through these methods or whether they find it meaningful to think in this way.
· Potentially abusive use of clinician devolved ‘self-responsibility’ and competency of individuals to deliver this approach competently and sensitively.
· Primarily has been targeted at BME groups, ‘hard to engage’ groups and in some cases involuntarily to secondary care mental health service users in prison. I’m concerned that this may further burden people who have less power to be ‘responsible’ for their mental health because they don’t fit the existing systems – maybe it frees them from services they don’t want to be part of?
I don’t think that I have the knowledge or experience to comprehend the impact (positive or negative) of such a shift in emphasis (if it indeed happens in practice). I would be interested in the views of others who may have experienced the uses and abuses of this, have alternative suggestions, comments or reactions in relation to mental health practise or Psychology in general.
Thanks
Mel
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