Complementary Therapies – a spiritual resource in recovery-processes?

Background: Studies show that spirituality is an important issue for alternative and complementary practitioners and their treatment practice. In social psychiatry in Denmark, several residential homes have implemented various therapies such as massage and ear acupuncture, which along with other rehabilitative treatments intends to support recovery processes of people with serious mental illness.
Aim: To investigate how employees and residents perceive complementary therapies as an integral rehabilitative treatment, and to explore the recovery related implications of spirituality employed in the use of complementary therapies in residential homes within social psychiatry.
Methods: The study includes participant observation, interviews, questionnaires and focus groups in four psychiatric residential home in the regions of Southern Denmark and Mid-Jutland. Data are collected from January 2017 to October 2017. Qualitative and quantitative analysis will identify possible recovery-relevant effects of complementary therapies as well as implications of spirituality.
Results: Preliminary findings indicate that spirituality is a significant element of the complementary therapies offered at the residential homes and may be important in relation to processes of recovery as change, hope and meaning in life from the perspective of employees and residents. Understandings of recovery and the spirituality employed have implications for the performance of selected complementary therapies and underlying understandings of body and health as well as for the ethics of providing complementary treatment practice in social psychiatry.