Recovery International (formerly Recovery, Inc., often referred to simply as Recovery or RI) is a mental health self-help organization founded in 1937 by neuropsychiatrist Abraham Low in Chicago, Illinois. Recovery's program is based on self-control, self-confidence, and increasing one's determination to act. Recovery deals with a range of people, all of whom have difficulty coping with everyday problems, whether or not they have a history of psychiatric hospitalization. It is non-profit, secular, and although it uses methods devised by Low, most groups are currently led by experienced non-professionals.
History Abraham Low, a neuropsychiatrist, began the Recovery groups in 1937, when he was on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago. At that time, Recovery Inc. was an entity of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of Illinois Research and Education Hospital, and participants in Recovery were limited to those who had been hospitalized in the Psychiatric Institute at the university. The original thirty-seven founding members had recovered their mental health after receiving insulin shock treatments at the Institute.
Low began the groups as part of an attempt to improve the patient's care following discharge from his hospital. In the early years of the organization he encouraged members to advocate for improvements in social policies regarding state mental health regulations. Following backlash from the medical community to these efforts, Low disbanded the group in 1941. His patients, however, asked to be trained to teach Recovery's methods to others and in 1942 Low began to teach members to lead groups in their homes.
The organization separated from the Psychiatric Institute in 1942, operating out of private offices in Chicago. New membership at this time was drawn largely from patients in Low's private psychiatry practice. During the first years following its separation Low remained in close contact with all Recovery groups and received regular reports from group leaders. As the membership and number of meetings grew, it made this level of cooperation with the groups untenable. In 1952, Low allowed expansion of Recovery outside of Illinois, giving control of local groups to former patients who had become group leaders. Following Low's death in 1954, Recovery transitioned completely from a professionally run treatment adjunct, to a peer-run self-help group.
Effective January 1, 2007 Recovery, Inc. formally changed its name to Recovery International. On January 1, 2008 Recovery International merged with The Abraham Low Institute and provisionally renamed the new organization Recovery International / The Abraham Low Institute (RI/TALI). On January 1, 2009, Abraham Low Self-Help Systems was incorporated to umbrella several new programs, and the group continues operations as Recovery International and Abraham Low Self-Help Systems in various states and internationally.
Fundamental concepts
Symptoms The causes and classification of mental illnesses are considered irrelevant in the Recovery method. Recovery members are simply viewed as people who have developed disturbing symptom-reactions leading to ill-controlled behavior. Symptoms are threatening sensations; including feelings, impulses, and obsessive thoughts. The phrase, "symptomatic idiom" describes the mental association of danger with symptoms.
The symptomatic idiom implies that there is an impending catastrophe of physical collapse, mental collapse, or permanent handicap. In the first instance, for example, a person may consider heart palpitations as signaling that sudden death is imminent, or that a painful headache is caused by a brain tumor; phobias, compulsions, and ruminations would eventually cause a mental collapse. The fear of permanent handicap insists that there is no cure or relief for one's mental illness and that recovery is impossible.
Temper Temper is a combination of a feeling and a judgment about oneself or others. The feeling is related to one of the two types of temper, fear or anger. The judgment is that one has been wronged by another, or that one has done something wrong. "Fearful temper" arises from thoughts that one has made a mistake (has done something wrong) which in turn causes feelings such as fear, shame and inadequacy. "Angry temper" results from the belief that one has been wronged which in turn creates feelings of indignation and impatience. There is a two-way relationship between temper and symptoms. Symptoms induce emotions such as fear and anger, which in turn induce temper, which increases the intensity of the symptoms.
"Temperamental lingo" describes language related to judgments of right and wrong, and the use of defeatist language when discussing symptoms. When discussing symptoms, temperamental lingo includes the use of adjectives such as "intolerable," "uncontrollable," "unbearable," and similar language that places an emphasis on the dangerous and fatalistic implications of feelings, impulses, or thoughts.
Will Free will is fundamental to Recovery's method. The subconscious, as it is known in psychoanalysis, as well as viewpoints emphasizing unconscious motivations, drives, and instincts are considered to be self-defeating. Recovery considers adults as capable of behaving based on deliberate plans, settled decisions, reasoned conclusions and firm determinations. Will gives adults the ability to accept or reject thoughts and impulses. Recovery members achieve mental health by training their Wills to reject self-defeating thoughts and impulses, countering them with self-endorsing thoughts and wellness-promoting actions.
External and Internal Environment Recovery distinguishes between the External Environment, the realities of a situation, and the Internal Environment, one's own subjective feelings, thoughts, impulses, and sensations. Two components of the Internal Environment, thoughts and impulses, can be directly controlled by Will. Control of thoughts and impulses allows indirect control over sensations and feelings. For instance, thoughts of insecurity and anxiousness can be replaced with thoughts of security. Similarly, a feeling of fear can be disposed by removing the associated belief of danger (symptomatic idiom). While the Internal Environment can be changed with cognitive reframing, changing one's External Environment may or may not be possible.
Nervousness Recovery focuses on treating former mental patients, sometimes referred to as postpsychotic persons, as well as psychoneurotic persons. The latter group is most often referred to as "nervous" or "nervous patients". Recovery members may refer to themselves as "nervous patients" regardless of whether they are being treated by a physician or other professional. Sociologist Edward Sagarin described this as a compromise between the term neurotic and the more colloquial phrase "nervous breakdown".
Common techniques
Recovery encourages members to cognitively reframe their experiences using several techniques. Spotting, reframing defeatist language, self-endorsement and creating Examples are the most commonly cited in scholarly reviews of Recovery.
Spotting Spotting is an introspective relabeling of thoughts and symptoms. When a thought arises related to angry temper, fearful temper, or associating danger with a symptom it must be spotted and reframed. Members practice spotting and reacting appropriately to the distressing thought or symptom.
Reframing language Recovery developed its own language for labeling psychiatric symptoms and responding to them. This language is centered around two concepts, "authority" and "sabotage." It is suggested that members rely on the authority of a physician's diagnosis with respect to their symptoms. For instance, if a member self-diagnoses a headache as being caused by a brain tumor, but a physician has diagnosed it otherwise, then the member is said to be sabotaging the physician's authority. This is similarly true for the member's prognosis, if a member despairs that their condition is hopeless, but a physician has found the prognosis to be good, this is also sabotage of the physician's authority. Using the physician's perspective to reframe defeatist thoughts is intended to help members recognize that they have not lost control, and their situation can be coped with.
Self-endorsement Members practice self-endorsement of every effort made to use a Recovery method, no matter how small and regardless of the outcome. In this way, similar subsequent efforts will require less work and are more likely to be successful. Similarly members are taught to change their behavior in "part acts" (small steps), to simply "move their muscles" to complete tasks, however small, to eventually complete larger overwhelming tasks.
Creating Examples The Example format was created by Low as a means to allow Recovery to function as a stand-alone lay self-help group that would not require professional supervision. Members create Examples by following a four-part outline, each part requiring a description. Details of an event that caused distress. The symptoms and discomfort that the event aroused. How Recovery principles were utilized to cope with the event. How the member would have behaved in response to the event before joining Recovery.
Examples are a formalized way to practice the Recovery program. A successful outcome is not required to create an Example, as all attempts at practicing Recovery methods are endorsed.
Meetings
1937–1952 During the first fifteen years of Recovery, Low required members to attend classes and meetings for at least six months at a cost of ten dollars per month, not including the membership dues of two dollars per year. Members would meet at least three days a week and on Wednesdays take part in panel discussions as panelists or audience members held at a private home. Panel discussions would consist of three to four panelists with considerable experience in Recovery discussing a topic from Low's literature, focusing on spotting and conquering symptoms. Dr. Low would address the audience at the end of each panel discussion summing up the discussion and correcting any misinformation given about Recovery. Every Thursday Low would conduct a group psychotherapy class for Recovery members.
No meetings were held between Saturday and Wednesday. Commonly, novice members would have a "setback," a relapse of psychiatric symptoms, during this time. As setbacks were considered unavoidable, the novice members were assigned to a more experienced member to call or visit should they need assistance. If the assistance provided by the experienced member was not helpful, they could contact a chairperson in their area (a member who functioned like the physician's deputy), and if that was still not satisfactory they could contact the physician, Dr. Low.
1952–Present At the meetings, members share examples from their lives that caused nervous symptoms, the thoughts that occurred just beforehand, how they spotted them and reacted to them. Other members offer alternative ways of looking at the situation and suggest how to better handle similar symptoms in the future. Meetings range in size from 6 to 30 members and follow a rigid schedule to ensure adherence to Recovery methods. Each meeting has a leader in a permanent position; leadership duties do not rotate from meeting to meeting. Each meeting is split into five parts. Members introduce themselves by first name only, as is practiced in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Impact of Pandemic (2020-2021) Due to COVID-19, more than 300 community meetings were closed, and many new telephone and online meetings were added. This gives people access to more meetings at various times during the week, regardless of geography.
Reading of Recovery literature