Review of “Behind the Rhetoric: Mental Health Recovery in Ontario” (Jennifer Poole)

Abstract

Through discussing how the recovery model has become popular within the mental health system in Ontario, Poole offers an outstanding critique of recovery’s rhetoric. Using Foucault’s concepts of “discursive formation”, Poole demonstrates that the recovery model borrows concepts from biomedical discourse, and therefore is not as new and empowering as people believe. She illustrates how the recovery model actually provides a very narrow definition of how one must “recover” from “mental illness” that serves to silence psychiatric survivors that may be critical of the recovery movement. Poole also illustrates how the recovery movement is influenced by neo-liberalism, as it has become a growing industry funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Further, she offers readers insight into the inherent ‘whiteness’ of the recovery movement, which emphasizes personal responsibility, and subscribes to western ideas of individualism and western definitions of what mental health is.