Abstract
We believe that a major breakthrough in the future of care for people with mental illness or addiction does not lie in their further isolation within institutional settings but rather in enriching their natural environment with a recovery guide. As part of our workshop, we will work together to capture some essential aspects of the idea of "contagious recovery." We will try to create an educational environment that will be framed by the following principles: - Recovery guides gain legitimacy not through traditional education but through their experience and therefore through practical expertise (Borkman, 1976). - Practical knowledge is gained by the recovery guides in the process of self-recovery, or by passing through this process as a companion to someone recovering themselves.
Practical expertise then requires the ability to transform this knowledge into the ability to help others navigate and achieve their own recovery. - Many people have a living experience of recovery, but only those who have the added dimension of practical expertise are ideal candidates for the role of recovery guide. - This dual qualification of own experience and practical expertise is guaranteed by local recovery communities and allocated to those who have demonstrated abiding and living proof of their expertise as recovery guides (White & Sanders, 2006). - Recovery guides work within the long tradition of so-called injured healers - people who have suffered and survived illness or hard experience, and then use their vulnerability and lessons learned from the recovery process to help others who are trying to overcome the same difficulties (White, 2000; Jackson, 2001). (McShin Foundation)