The Meaning-Making and Self-Recovery Process in Individuals with Psychosis

This project is a systemic review of research detailing the meaning-making and self-recovery process for individuals with psychosis. Psychosis often involves the loss of identity and inhibited metacognition. This keeps individuals from integrating various aspects of their life to form a holistic and empowering view of themselves. Often times psychosis can impede on individuals access to a nuanced life narrative, how they affect others, how others affect them, and the general complexity of themselves and others. By compiling both quantitative and qualitative research, this review will demonstrate how psychotherapy can facilitate the recovery of self and meaning-making of one’s life. This review will address how any explanatory framework can be used by the patient if integrated properly. In addition, it will explain how stigma and self-esteem are interlinked with these processes. Overall, this review will aim to prove why meaning-making and self-recovery are integral parts of psychosis treatment, capable of promoting successful outcomes.

Supervisor: Megan Gaunnac
Department: Psychiatry