Discuss about the Mental Health Nursing for Practitioners and Providers.
A mental health patient may not have complete recovery from his or her illness. One may recover from the physical illness but in mental health, nursing the word “complete recovery” is a rarely used. Mental health nursing is more than the treatment or management of symptoms. Recovery refers to having support, building resilience and ability to process thoughts. For this purpose the recovery principles are developed that will help guide the patient’s recovery from mental illness. In this assignment Jeremy Oxley‘s recovery pathway is discussed. He is the founder of the band named, “Sunny Boys” and is known to be a gifted musician. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He lived twenty years with this illness and yet returned to the stage. The essay discusses the principles of recovery in response to the mental health problems experienced by Jeremy.
Sunny Boys is the popular Australian band, led by the famous guitarist, Jeremy Oxley. The documentary video shows the life of Jeremy and his remarkable journey with schizophrenia. At the age of 18, he was popular as talented singer and was popular of successful band. In early 1980s, Oxley performed along with Peter (elder brother). Peter was a bass guitarist. They achieved a great success in very short period of time. Oxley became a busy man right in those years and engaged in hectic schedules of recording sessions and relentless touring. It turned out be stressful for him and ultimately led to physical as well as mental burnout (Chien et al., 2013). In one incident, Oxley in 2012, walked out of the Enmore Theatre. Nobody could comprehend the rationale of this behaviour. It was the sign of his crushing health. Eventually, this came out be schizophrenia and Oxley was trapped into this lonely horror of mental illness (The Sunnyboy, 2013).
Bill Bilson, the childhood friend of Oxley, describes him as fun loving and gentleperson. His friends knew him as perfectionist. Bill was a drummer of the band Sunny Boys. He was in surfing before and later engaged in guitar playing. He described that Oxley, was highly stressed due to hectic schedule. Eventually he started to have disturbed thinking pattern and paranoid thoughts. He started with excessive alcohol consumption and was slowly turning arrogant particularly during the shows (McGorry, 2014). He failed to continue with the high performance in band as earlier. Soon the newspaper articles exposed his bad behaviour to the public, He was always found to be down and out, as he sought the refuge of alcohol and drugs. This phase indicates a heavy impact of schizophrenia on Oxley. This behaviour led to the demise of the popular band, “The Sunny Boys”. Peter was initially unable to comprehend the rationale for this bizarre behaviour of Oxley. It was difficult for Jeremy at that point to understand and accept his mental illness. He refused to undergo treatment and he was separated with his brother. It was difficult life for Jeremy as he was becoming a complex personality. He was himself not able to figure out the changes happening in his life. He was experiencing auditory hallucinations. He experienced hearing voices of people who are not around him. He had illusion that people prefer his brother Peter more than him. He felt that somebody stole his music from him. These were classic signs of schizophrenia and hearing of voices is also known as “first-rank symptom” for schizophrenia.
Jeremy’s non compliance to the medical treatment could be justified by his denial of illness. He refused to accept Schizophrenia and denied the medical intervention. He also did not maintain a healthy regime knowing about his unusual heart rhythms and diabetes. Many people refuse treatment as they fail to understand and accept the psychotic episodes experienced by them (Chandra et al., 2014). This significantly hampers their recovery process. People cannot accept mental illness as fast they could cope up with the physical illness. Consequently, their quality of life is deteriorated. Awareness of mental illness is less likely to be found in some people (Kate et al., 2013). It was same with Jeremy as he had no insights of Schizophrenia. He married Mary Griffith, who finally helped him to recover from Schizophrenia (The Sunnyboy, 2013).
Recovery from mental illness is not known as clinical recovery. It is more of a personal recovery, where a person understands the illness, and expertise with the manifestations of the illness. It is different from the clinical illness where a person has to work hard to change the attitude towards life, values, beliefs, attitude towards life, emotional and social skills, roles and feelings (Cavelti, Homan & Vauth, 2016). In this type of recovery a person have to try to live a meaningful life despite the limitations imposed by the mental illness. It is called as living in hope and adding value to life, to make it more meaningful. In this type of recovery, a mentally ill patient tries to find purpose to life and way to grow beyond the catastrophic events. Recovery from complex mental health condition needs a change in personal attitude and perspective towards life. It cannot be cured solely based on medications. Emotional support is vital to recover from schizophrenia (Hasson-Ohayon et al., 2014). It requires proper guidance to cope up with the limitations of the illnesses. Mary offered such support and guidance to Oxley. She gave him mental comfort to cope with his illness. They had a happy life together and had two children Kieran and Lachlan, also came out be a helping hand in Oxley’s recovery (The Sunnyboy, 2013).
There are six principles of mental health recovery according to the National Recovery Framework. This framework is to guide a patient, to hope and gain confidence, engage proactively in life, understand and accept the mental illness and its symptoms, cope up with disabilities, gain personal autonomy, build social identity, and foster positive self-image (Hasson-Ohayon et al., 2014). In the subsequent sections some of the principles are explained that are relevant to the given case study.
The first principle deals with the recovery of an individual with one’s own uniqueness. It means that the recovery is all about having satisfactory life. This type of recovery is based on opportunities for making healthy choices that can add value to life. The objective of the recovery principle is to help a patient live a meaningful life, and be a contributing factor in a society (health.gov.au, 2013). This recovery principle emphasise on the individual empowerment and improving the quality of life. Mary empowered Jeremy, to make choices that are healthy for his life, their family and children. Jeremy gained a social status with his wife and two children. With the emotional support and attachment of love, Jeremy could make individual choices. He could recognise his importance, and uniqueness which made him engage in self management process (Department of Health, 2017).
The second principle refers to the way of empowering and supporting the individual with mental illness, to make choices, explore the choices meaningfully and creatively and acknowledge the choices (health.gov.au, 2013). Jeremy could make individual choices as he was empowered during his recovery period. During his recovery he was engaged in painting to express his thoughts and emotions. He could vent out his feelings through colours and painting. It helped him to become more creative and expressive. He was happy to teach guitar to his children. It made him and his children when playing music as depicted in video. Eventually it helped Jeremy to gain strength and own accountability of his actions. As he spent time with his family, he felt more responsible towards his life. To help Jeremy balance his personal life and professional liabilities this engagement was necessary. To make him use his opportunities, it was necessary for him to ensure balance between support and duty of care.
The fourth principle is also relevant to the case study that deals with patient’s dignity and respect. In this type of recovery, interaction with the mentally ill patient is respectful, courteous and involves honest communication (health.gov.au, 2013). Recovery is based on considering the sensitivity of each individual and respecting their beliefs and values of life. Mary respected Jeremy despite of his illness considering him an important part of her family. Even the children engaged with him actively in communication. This made Jeremy feel empowered as he was getting attention to his needs, choices, and belief system. He felt his dignity was maintained as he played equal role in family as father and husband. His opinions were respected giving him the feeling of autonomy a measure of recovery (Shanks et al., 2013).
Using the National Recovery Framework the essay illustrated the Jeremy’s recovery from schizophrenia. He was empowered by his wife Mary and rectifying his thought process made him take healthy decisions. Eventually he gained the confidence to return back to the pop-music industry. It was a commendable journey of 20 years of lived experience with mental illness. Jeremy is still seeking treatment. He is yet to find many more answers to life. He was engaged in good communication system, support and empowerment process, which made him optimistic about life a measure of good recovery orientation process (Williams et al., 2017)
It can be concluded from the case study of Jeremy Oxley, that the mental health services need to incorporate these recovery principles when treating the mentally ill patient. The patient centered approach is the holistic approach as demonstrated by Mary in the video. Instead of solely relying on medication, she also collaborated with the clinicians. Thus, National Recovery Framework guides mental health professionals to design care plan that deals with language of hope, self management of illness, and committed nursing. There is a need of right conjugation of services, supports and treatments. The life of Jeremy Oxley is inspiring in the sense that it is not impossible to recover from complex mental health conditions.
References
A national framework for recovery-oriented mental health services: Guide for practitioners and providers. (2013). health.gov.au. Retrieved 17 September 2017, from https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/67d17065514cf8e8ca257c1d00017a90/$file/recovgde.pdf
Cavelti, M., Homan, P., & Vauth, R. (2016). The impact of thought disorder on therapeutic alliance and personal recovery in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder: An exploratory study. Psychiatry research, 239, 92-98.
Chandra, I. S., Kumar, K. L., Reddy, M. P., & Reddy, C. M. P. K. (2014). Attitudes toward medication and reasons for non-compliance in patients with schizophrenia. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 36(3), 294.
Chien, W. T., Leung, S. F., Yeung, F. K., & Wong, W. K. (2013). Current approaches to treatments for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, part II: psychosocial interventions and patient-focused perspectives in psychiatric care. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 9, 1463.
Department of Health | Principles of recovery oriented mental health practice. (2017). Health.gov.au. Retrieved 17 September 2017, from https://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-i-nongov-toc~mental-pubs-i-nongov-pri
Hasson-Ohayon, I., Mashiach-Eizenberg, M., Elhasid, N., Yanos, P. T., Lysaker, P. H., & Roe, D. (2014). Between self-clarity and recovery in schizophrenia: reducing the self-stigma and finding meaning. Comprehensive psychiatry, 55(3), 675-680.
Kate, N., Grover, S., Kulhara, P., & Nehra, R. (2013). Relationship of caregiver burden with coping strategies, social support, psychological morbidity, and quality of life in the caregivers of schizophrenia. Asian journal of psychiatry, 6(5), 380-388.
McGorry, P. (2014). Film review ‘The Sunnyboy’. Australasian Psychiatry, 22(5), 503-503.
Shanks, V., Williams, J., Leamy, M., Bird, V. J., Le Boutillier, C., & Slade, M. (2013). Measures of personal recovery: a systematic review. Psychiatric Services, 64(10), 974-980.
The Sunnyboy. (2013). Retrieved from https://edutv.informit.com.au.ezproxy1.acu.edu.au/watch-screen.php?videoID= 655842
Williams, J., Leamy, M., Bird, V., Harding, C., Larsen, J., Le Boutillier, C., … & Slade, M. (2012). Measures of the recovery orientation of mental health services: systematic review. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 47(11), 1827-1835.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download
