Spaces out of reach? Service user involvement in residents’ meetings at recovery-oriented social housing facilities for young people with mental health disorders

Abstract

Through anthropological fieldwork among people with severe mental health disorders, this article focuses on these service users’ interactions and relations with the professionals and with other service users at recovery-oriented housing facilities in Denmark. We discuss how recovery-oriented spaces designed for the service users may feel out of reach to them, hence making the service users feel awkward and reluctant to participate. The study shows how service users, initially recognized as “unengaged,” rather are to be understood as active actors involved in their recovery and forming social bonds. The research seeks to put forward new perspectives on recovery as a concept in psychosocial rehabilitation, arguing that recovery and healing may take up different forms in different spaces and that recognizing services users’ enactment of reluctancy and disengagements could serve as an important part of recovery work in rehabilitation.