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African Americans and recovery from severe mental illness
- Authors:
- ARMOUR Marilyn Peterson, BRADSHAW William, ROSEBOROUGH David
- Journal article citation:
- Social Work in Mental Health, 7(6), 2009, pp.602-622.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
This study examined the lived experience of 9 African-American persons (aged 25-54 years; 4 men, 5 women) recovering from serious and persistent mental illness ((SPMI). This was a subgroup analysis of a larger study investigating recovery from SPMI in 44 subjects included in a community mental health program in Minnesota. Services provided by the program included assertive community mental health treatment teams and intensive case management services. A hermeneutic phenomenological method guided the data collection and analysis. Qualitative data were collected by a white interviewer at 6, 12 and 18 months after initial contact with the program using semi-structured interviews. A culturally sensitive perspective informed the data analysis. Interviews were transcribed, read, and coded to cluster thematic aspects in each case and across cases. Four themes emerged from the study: striving for normalcy, striving to stay ”up”, coping with the consequences of the illness, and leaning on the supports that watch out for and over me. The themes of striving for normalcy and coping with the consequences of illness were synonymous with the findings from the larger study. However the other themes were unique to this racial subset. Among these distinctive themes, the intimate relationship with religiosity and spirituality was perhaps the most pronounced. The authors comment that implications for practice include sensitivity to the intersection of racial oppression and stigma specific to mental illness, attention to meso- and macro-level needs, and client’s positive responses to collaborative and personalised relationships with mental health professionals.