Upcycling Recovery: Potential alliances of recovery, inequality and Mad Studies

Originating in the US in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the recovery movement started as a progressive grassroots movement in which we, as survivors, assert our right to control our own lives in the face of dominant psychiatric power. Contrary to the notion of chronicity and deficit often found in Western bio-medical models, recovery-oriented mental health services emphasise the hope of living a valued and decent life with or without the limitations caused by distress and ill-health (Anthony, 1993). Over the years, recovery as a concept has become a frequent discursive feature in mental health policies in various Anglophone countries such as the UK, New Zealand and Australia. In other places, such as Hong Kong and mainland China, where there is a lack of national mental health policy, the recovery approach is often perceived as a welcomed and relevant concept which requires local adaptation (Tse et al., 2013a; Tse et al., 2013b)