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Expanding on the introduction to the multinational study described in the first article, this article briefly reviews informants’ contexts of treatment across Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the United States, and provides a cursory description of each informant, organized according to her or his respective country. The informant descriptions are followed by illustrative third-person narratives drawn from interviews with two informants from Sweden. As a counterpoint to themes derived across informant narratives, such as the roles of home, significant others, and coping strategies, this article attempts to illustrate how such themes are interwoven within the context of individuals’ lives and personal journeys toward recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a growing literature describing processes of recovery in psychotic disorders, this report presents findings of an intensive, international study. Open-ended qualitivite interviews were conducted in Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the United States with a total of twelve individuals who have experience of recovery in psychosis. All interviews were translated into English and transcribed. Investigators from each of these countries collaborated in analyzing the interviews and identifying common elements across the twelve narratives. Themes were identified in each of the following areas: 1) how the individual deals with his or her difficulties; 2) the role of material resources; 3) the various roles of formal and informal health systems; 4) the roles, and absence, of significant others; and 5) the roles of social and cultural factors. Salient themes included the person's determination to get better, establishing a degree of self–control, and struggling to achieve a normal life; the need for material resoures and a sense of home, and the importance of going out and engagging in normal activities; the benifits, and costs, of medication, involvement in mutual support/user groups, and participation in various psychosocial interventions; the need to be accepted as, and to accept oneself as, a normal person who exists beyond the psychosis; the impact of stigma and discrimination, and the imortance of having one's rights respected and returning to a meaningful social role through work and/or positive relationships outside of the formal mental health system. Cultural differences between participants from each country were noted primarily in the nature of the opportunities and supports offered rather than in the nature of the processes described. In closing, implications of these findings are considered both for future research on processes of recovery and for making clinical practice more recovery-oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]