Introducing the recovery inspiration group: promoting hope for recovery with inspirational recovery stories

The purpose of this paper is to undertake a preliminary evaluation of a novel intervention – Recovery Inspiration Group, which uses recovery stories to promote hope and inspiration for recovery among people with complex mental health difficulties.

The Recovery Inspiration Group was delivered to women on a specialist personality disorder inpatient unit, who were concurrently participating in a dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) Programme. In total, 12 service users participated in the RIG and as part of the intervention, wrote down key reflections after hearing each recovery story. A thematic analysis of these reflections formed the primary basis of the evaluation. Descriptive statistics derived from a service user feedback survey (n=6) supplemented the qualitative findings.

Three themes were identified in the qualitative data, suggesting that participants had engaged with recovery-oriented reflections and experiences: recovery stories as validating and inspiring; Generalisation of DBT skills; shifting perspectives of recovery: doing better rather than being better. The survey results unanimously endorsed the RIG as a worthwhile and validating experience, which participants would recommend to other service users.

Recovery Inspiration Group appears to be a low-cost and easily replicable intervention with the potential to promote hope and inspiration for recovery among people with complex mental health difficulties.

Recovery Inspiration Group is a novel approach to harnessing the wisdom of people with lived experience of mental health difficulties, to foster hope among users of mental health inpatient services.