Recovery, Poverty, and the Neoliberal Construction of Mental Health Rehabilitation: Critical Perspectives

The current articulation of community-based mental health rehabilitation (MHR) is deeply affected by neoliberal policies aimed at reducing social welfare expenses. This policy approach has led to the degradation of the social-justice-based ideas at the foundation of recovery and the recentering and normalization of the demand that people with severe mental illness (SMI) be independent and self-sufficient as a precondition for rehabilitation treatment. Thus, social-justice-informed MHR practices for people at the intersection of SMI and poverty are underdeveloped. This article explores the possibility of developing such practices, examining the application of critical poverty-aware rehabilitation practice at a mental health community-based rehabilitation service in Israel. The findings highlight the common economic-based constructions of rehabilitative practice and emphasize how social-justice-informed practices challenge them. The discussion suggests that critical perspectives can expand the narrow construction of rehabilitation practices for people at the intersection of SMI and poverty.