How the Vikings won and lost the world - implications for recovery oriented work on psychosis

At Sørlandet Mental Health Services we have been working actively with the ACT model since 2009. Right now we are in the transition phase towards being a FACT team. Our team consists of two groups having case managers,... [ view full abstract ]

At Sørlandet Mental Health Services we have been working actively with the ACT model since 2009. Right now we are in the transition phase towards being a FACT team. Our team consists of two groups having case managers, psychiatrist and clinical psychologist assigned to each group.

The focus of this presentation is on how to coordinate a multi-disciplinary approach in recovery work with this group of patients.


The presentation will also focus on how every part of the multidisciplinary operation has to interact, and on what kind of organization you need to make good things happen.
In our model we think of recovery both as the ability to live in the society, and in doing that an increase of autonomy and participation in social life in the society the patient lives in. It’s the FACT teams primary task to increase helpful interaction in the natural environment where the patient lives.
Results
In the days we were running the ACT operation we reduced the use of beds (days in hospital) to below 50 % of the baseline level
Nearly 50 % of our patients are now frequent users of our empirically based day center program.
The lecture will hopefully show that the struggle towards high fidelity to approaches that serves recovery is a “never ending story”. To illustrate this point I will tell the story about how and why we (the Vikings) won and then lost the world because of the lack of a program and thereby poor or non-existing quality control.

Conclusive remarks.
If you tell a multidisciplinary team to go out and do something they will do that. That will not necessarily produce recovery. On the best it may produce a “feel good experience” on both sides of the table without necessarily any steps towards “recovery” and increased autonomy.