Behind the Scenes
The recovery protocol program offers consumers, for the first time, who are suffering from “medication failure” for longstanding anxiety disorders and depression an online educational platform offering step-by-step instructions for getting more from their current treatment provider than is presently experienced to kick start a recovery. With the implementation of this online manual, owning one’s life again is achievable. The purpose of this protocol is to counter the debilitating effects of “medication failure” on the erosion of an individual’s recovery psychology (recovery mindset) towards believing a recovery is neither possible nor achievable. This is a myth, as revealed by recovery researchers.

Recovery Defined
There are many definitions of recovery. However, to contextualize recovery from Citizens Psychiatry’s vantage, here is the following description,

A Personal Recovery can be described as a self-directed, transformational, yet collaborative journey of discovery and learning that fosters the alignment of a person with their values and purposes, which places the individual at the center of living life with greater value, meaning, and purpose. This journey changes the mental illness trajectory, so “The Illness” begins to orbit around the person’s life, like family, friendships, education, pets, and career, considered a Person-Centered Life.  This trajectory is regarded as a recovery position of strength, as opposed to the individual’s life orbiting the illness, an unrecovered position known as Illness-Centered Living.

The Recovery Protocol Breakthrough provides a pathway towards culturing a strong recovery mindset. When people are at the Helm of their lives, greater freedom and quality of life are realized, allowing them to own their lives again. This is a freeing experience where The Illness (mental illness conditions) operates from a weakened position where its grip, strength, and influence have lessened and where holding its dominant central position in a person’s life is lost.

The bedrock of The Recovery Protocol Breakthrough lies in combining and integrating two key modalities, Narrative Practices (see terms and definitions) and Framework for Recovery Orientation. These are the centerpieces of this protocol.

The program operates within the service provider’s meeting room. As a consumer coming upon this information and determining it has value and merits, the next step is to introduce this protocol to a chosen service professional who is working with oneself, be it a psychiatrist, peer worker, psychotherapist, psychologist, family doctor, nurse practitioner, addiction worker and so forth. The chapter called “Providers on Board” is devoted to this topic.

At first, readers will find new concepts, language, and exercises unfamiliar with traditional helping disciplines. For many people, the making of “personal recovery” (recovery) alongside treatment is novel and unfamiliar territory. There is a page on Terms and Definitions, along with illustrations and videos throughout, to aid in familiarizing oneself with unfamiliar concepts.

For consumers, orient your reading toward gaining an intuitive understanding of the program and what it can offer instead of studying its content in detail and committing it to memory. This study is left for the service providers as they shall lead the practice of the protocol with you.

The online program is divided into two main divisions.  The first division is a parent or home page site you are on presently. In this part of the site, the presentation of the “whys” of recovery is outlined to give today’s understanding, according to Citizen Psychiatry. The second division, the program site, lays out the practice of the protocol step-by-step and is accessed by a link listed under “Program Access.”

On the parent site, the chapter “What is a Recovery” presents graphics illuminating the recovery process. The chapter on the Recovery Protocol, parts 1, 2, and 3, outlines the thesis supporting the need for such a protocol. To ground what a recovery offers, the chapter on “Recovery Explained” contains consumer voices on what a recovery means to them, along with a chapter depicting The Framework of Recovery Orientation, which outlines the “attitude” held within The Meeting Room that favors supporting a recovery. Also, video links and embedded videos are provided to further aid one’s understanding.

One shall find chapters titled The Fable and The Genesis that provide essential information to further ground this program’s value. The Insiders Notes chapter offers insights into what consumers and other stakeholders have shared with me over the decades about the nature of psychiatry concerning medications and their limitations.

A few words about the language of terms utilized in this program. The recovery protocol introduces a new language set called “naming practices.” The “naming practices” are borrowed from Narrative Practices. With Narrative Practices, metaphors are leveraged, like the term “The Illness” used in the program instead of the psychiatric label itself to begin lessening the ties with the mental illness. For example, instead of using the formal name depression or anxiety, consumers can substitute a collective name that suits the “persona” (personal character) of their diagnosis label, such as “The Wolf Pack” or “The Raging Storm.”  Invoking “naming practices” begins to clarify boundaries between the person and the mental illness, lessoning the individual’s enmeshment with the mental health condition. Allowing for this differentiation starts weakening the glue holding the mental illness grip on a person so recovery can begin to take flight.

The idea of a mental health condition having a “persona” is unconventional to mainstream service providers as used here in the program. In this protocol, metaphors of this nature have motives and missions for an individual’s life, which runs counter to what an individual would hold for their life. Metaphor usage, in this way, is natural to the English language. A simple statement like “The large stone showed tremendous physical toughness fighting weather fronts against all cost so insects and bugs can find shelter.”  This program’s use of The Illness exemplifies this endowment. A conversational space is then created by “naming practices” to distinguish a “person’s” motive and mission from the persona of a mental health illness for boundary clarification.

Another critical element of the “naming practices” is using the word “The” as a definite article. The word “The” can linguistically specify and distinguish specific items or concepts from others. The use of The Illness as the default wording for mental illness begins to differentiate the mental illness from the person. Other words that fit this billing are “That Anxiety” and “This Depression.” This contrasts with the usage of identity-enmeshing language like “My Depression,”; “My Anxiety,” or “I have depression.” Using language in this way infers personal ownership of the mental illness, thereby affirming and re-enforcing its presence as a feature of one’s individual makeup.

On another front, a unique aspect of the protocol is the numerical quantifying of recovery values. When you go to the doctor for an ailment that hurts, it is common for the physician to ask, “On a scale of one to 10, how painful is it?” This medical evaluation quantifies your perceived pain subjectively for tracking and evaluative purposes. This feature is called “Subjective Units of Quantification” (SUQ). These “values” are useful for grounding a subjective experience in a tangible form to evaluate one’s recovery status and progress.

Another feature to consider is the Recovery Continuum (click link). Two concepts are presented, “Illness Centered Living” and “Person Centered Living”. A strong position of recovery is person-centered, as opposed to leading a primarily illness-centered life, which is a weakened recovery stance. The protocol aims to facilitate the transition from an individual’s life orbiting the mental health illness, Illness-Led living, towards a Person-Centered Living stance where the individual is located at the center of their life with The Illness (mental illness) orbiting this position.

This program’s new and novel feature enlists one’s primary care provider or psychiatrist to conduct blood tests for mental health. MDs perform these blood tests as a standard for assessing physical health. The protocol section involved with this request is shown on the Flash Drive Forms, Section 1, Survey A.  The theme of blood testing for mental health connects nutrients with mental health recovery, like vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium and sodium. In addition, essential molecules such as hormones and steroids are open for investigation through blood testing. Linus Pauling, a Nobel Laureate in chemistry in the 1960s, authored a paper suggesting that the intake of the proper nutrients contained in foods can significantly enhance recovery from major mental health illnesses. Blood testing applied to detect deficiencies connected to mental health and well-being is well-known in integrative, nutritional, or functional psychiatry. However, it is foreign to allopathic psychiatry, which is the primary approach for most consumers receiving treatment.

The last prominent feature to note is “Recovery Based Interviews” (RBI). This cornerstone of the protocol is designed to elevate, exercise, and strengthen personal capacities, i.e., the person’s strengths, abilities, hopes, pursuits, goals, aspirations, talents, passions, interests, roles, and so forth. Through these interviews, the person’s recovery psychology is strengthened.

These provisions outlined ensure that the benefits offered by this program can alter the grip, strength, and influence of the mental health condition, allowing for more personal breathing space to be gained within an individual’s life-stream to accommodate living Person-Led Life.

Lastly, on the program site, the menu shall show how to implement the protocol and what this looks like using the Flash Drive Forms step-by-step.

To end this chapter, the following are two essential recovery foundations that flow through the
program.

Note: To print chapter pages of the program, see the “Printable Chapters” section under the Appendix on the Program Site. To access the Program Site, go to “Program Access” located on this home base site.

Terms of Use:  This program is for consumers with medication failure. No fees are required. Permission is granted to print materials from this site without prior consent from the site administrator. The consumer can port this protocol and introduce it to their non-clinical or clinical provider. The objective is to put into play this protocol to kick-start a recovery since medications are offering poor treatment returns, which is impacting a person’s quality of life and functioning from a recovery perspective.

Disclaimer:  The information provided on this site does not constitute medical advice or treatment. The information acts only as a guide to consider the elements for making recovery possible and how to institute such a program of practice within the Meeting Room space of one’s service provider.