Oldal 18 [18]
16 = USING INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
people to a cluster of symptoms. Recover from long-term hospitalization is
harder than recover from symptoms of mental illness. Thus, recovery in this
context means to recover from institutionalization and conceptualized as a
social and political process rather than a medical one (Terry & Cardwell, 2015).
The approach of recovery from mental illness has an important message to
recover from substance addiction too. Patient care in drug treatment could
also undermine self-esteem and hope. For example, methadone clinics which
give patients little privacy, dignity or respect often convey pessimism and dis¬
couragement by focusing solely on stabilizing people (Terry & Cardwell, 2015).
The study findings of Laudet (2007) highlighted what does recovery from
addiction mean for them who were self-identified as being in recovery. (This
study is one of the most critical studies concerning conceptualization of re¬
covery.) The study findings suggest that recovery from substance addiction is
not only a way to stop using drugs and alcohol. In this context, recovery means
learning to manage addiction (which is considered to be a chronic disorder)
without substance use. The 12-step programs (AA and NA) suggest “once an
addict always an addict” and recovery is treated as a never-ending, lifelong
process. That is why recovery requires total abstinence, being sober is necessary
but rarely sufficient for the achievement of improved personal health and social
function (B. M. K. Erdés, Kelemen, & Szijjarté, 2015; Laudet, 2007; McLellan,
McKay, Forman, Cacciola, & Kemp, 2005). This is consistent with the World
Health Organization’s conceptualization of health as the state of complete phys¬
ical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease (World
Health Organization, 1985, p. 34). Recovery is could be considered as a process
of “health learning” in which identity change and gaining skills that are essen¬
tial for recovery are incorporated (Erdos, Kelemen, Csurke, & Borst, 2011)
The approach of recovery is used in many fields to help people overcome
multiple problems. For example, it is also used during desistance from crime
(Farrall & Calverley, 2006), in recovery from divorce (Quinney & Fouts, 2004)
and in recovery from a suicide attempt (Sun & Long, 2013). Since the empir¬
ical studies of the present book examine the process of recovery from sub¬
stance use and voice hearing in the next sub-chapter a summary of these fields
is presented (the relevant literature is summarized at the introduction of each
study). In this section, my aim is to highlight study findings that represent
results from research where recovery processes were examined from a sub¬
jective perspective.
1.1.1.1.1. Recovery from substance use
Recovery from addiction is often in the focus of narrative psychological and
IPA research studies because with these methods the meaning-making process