Neorecovery: A Critical Analysis of the Relationship between Neoliberalism and the Recovery Movement

“Neorecovery” is a portmanteau used to describe the distortions that neoliberalism engendered in the original recovery philosophy. I describe how neoliberalism as an economic model acted externally to the recovery movement to preclude opportunities to implement a wide range of innovative mental health approaches and to curtail safety net and social justice policies for persons with severe mental illness. In addition, I illustrate how the neoliberalism philosophy acted internally by inducing the recovery movement to adopt an individual-focused ethos that minimized the impact of broader social structures that affect well-being and opportunities for self-realization. Recovery’s potentially radical transformative vision can only be achieved by seriously acknowledging the social and political structures that underlie the mental health system and their relationship to the broader society, and ultimately, altering them so that people experiencing severe mental illness can truly flourish.