The Recovery, Inc. Self-Help System A Support Mechanism for Patients and Professionals

An interview with George Deering, M.D. Dr. Deering is retired from private practice. During his career, he was Senior Psychiatrist at St. Vincent Hospital, Worcester, Massachusetts, and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School. During his active private practice, he regularly referred patients to Recovery, Inc. group meetings.

Question: Why do you recommend Recovery, Inc.?

Answer: Recovery, Inc. group meetings avoid all diagnoses, concentrating on day to day problems in a human setting. In a safe, constructive environment they provide a sense of accomplishment for the smallest of life's successes and put the errors of living in an acceptable light.

Question: With so many self-help groups available, why the strong bond to Recovery?

Answer: Initially, I referred because Recovery was consistently helpful both to my patients and to my relationship with my patients. Particularly noteworthy was the insistence on continuation and acceptance of professional help. Unlike many self-help groups, Recovery has not faltered in its initial effort to follow medically acceptable procedures. I never lost a patient to Recovery. In fact, many new patients came to me through their contact with Recovery.

Question: How do Recovery group meetings differ from other self-help groups?

Answer: The basic structure of a Recovery meeting focuses on the small (solvable), daily problems of the members, leaving the complex emotional and physical problems to professionals. Current managed care time-limiting practices restrict professionals to "big" problems. There is too little time for the multitude of day to day problems and stressors that people face. Recovery provides this understanding, encouragement and hope in a group that will always be accessible, without cost or wait.

Question: Did Recovery ever hinder or conflict with your professional treatment?

Answer: No. And that, to me, was of major importance. My patients learned to describe their problems in accurate, brief "Recovery language." It was a rare person who, on their own, had learned any such skill. Therapy was shorter and more effective when my patients and I shared this new "language."

Question: What effect does increasing cost and third party control have on patient care?

Answer: As the expense of medical care rises, complicated by the multiple and too often unpredictable restraints of managed care, sufficiently frequent office visits have become difficult to achieve. Recovery support is available weekly, more often if a person chooses to attend more than one group. Meetings provide a continuity of therapeutic experience that benefits both patient and physician, shortens overall treatment and provides support for setbacks.

Question: Is there any single outstanding benefit to patients attending Recovery meetings?

Answer: When I started practice 54 years ago, many more patients had not only supportive families, but supportive church and social groups. As individuals become more socially isolated, the family-like acceptance, support and understanding of the Recovery experience becomes more necessary. It provides another chance for individuals to learn social skills and learn to live more fully.

Question: Please elaborate on the concept of how Recovery provides a family-like experience?

Answer: Personal attendance and participation in Recovery meetings brings back memories of family meals and family table talk. Their structure was not unlike Recovery meetings. Father sets rules and keeps to them. He made sure everyone was heard every day - heard as they related the trivial, but personally important events of the day. Mother smoothed the rough places and always gave support. Each child became important, understood, and accepted. Recovery's meeting structure allows each participant to play each role, with the exception of rule making (handled by the Board of Directors). Beyond "table talk," Recovery creates contacts that existed in the old time small village.

Question: How did the family/village concepts benefit your patients?

Answer: In my opinion, no one can be completely mentally healthy unless he or she has the family/village experience. Today, professional therapy rarely has time to even teach about these concepts. Recovery deals with the small, "trivial" but oh, so important day to day experiences, putting them into a coherent group structure - into family/village experience. In doing this, the group meeting restores an essential part of the structure of mental health.

Question: How do Primary Care Physicians make use of Recovery's education-based group meetings? What patients can they refer?

Answer: In my experience there are three types of patients who benefit: 1) Those being referred to a mental health professional, but who must wait a considerable amount of time for their first appointment. 2) Those with emotional disorders who might be able to take part in the meeting give and take, but who initially refuse specialist care. The stigma associated with mental disorders is handled with comfort. Professional care becomes more acceptable. 3) Individuals who have no obvious emotional disorder, but are coping badly with their day to day problems.

Finding peers who can be trusted and learning from those peers is important in all three cases. Recovery meetings provide the simple tools necessary for handling the stressors of daily living, including the stresses of many physical illnesses.

Question: What about patients with severe and chronic conditions?

Answer: I never had a patient harmed by a Recovery meeting. Even seriously mentally ill people may benefit from Recovery training. At the worst, the patient simply will not be able to identify with the group and will stop going. Even in these instances, the brief contact with others who have accepted their own need for help, may make the patient more willing to cooperate with professional care.

Question: Do you think it's helpful for professionals to sit in on an occasional Recovery meeting?

Answer: Professionals are trained in all procedures used in treatment. Recovery is a powerful resource. As such, it can be best used when the professional has experienced meetings, and is aware of the basic program structure. For me, my most effective personal learning about Recovery came when I accompanied a newcomer to a meeting.

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