Unrecovery

Recovery in the Bin is a UK-based group for mental health survivors and supporters who are fed up with the way co-opted ‘recovery’ is being used to discipline and control those who are trying to find a place in the world, to live as they wish, trying to deal with the very real mental distress they encounter on a daily basis.

We want a robust ‘Social Model of Madness, Distress & Confusion’, placing mental health within the context of social justice and a wider class struggle.

We demand an immediate halt to the erosion of the welfare state and an end to benefits cuts, delays and sanctions. In the UK, as in many other countries, these attacks are killing disabled people. Recovery has been co-opted to fit this agenda.

We came up with the concept of Unrecovery in contrast to Recovery. It is a valid and legitimate political self-definition and not a permanent description of anyone’s mental state. It doesn’t mean we want to remain ‘unwell’ or ‘ill’ but that we reject the new neoliberal intrusion on the word ‘recovery’ that has been redefined, and taken over by market forces, humiliating treatment techniques and homogenising outcome measurements.