Non-helpful relationships with professionals – a literature review of the perspective of persons with severe mental illness*

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The relationship with professionals has proved to be important with regard to outcome for persons with severe mental illness (SMI). The understanding of non-helpful relationships is important complementary knowledge to that regarding helpful relationships. AIM: To review the available qualitative research providing knowledge of non-helpful relationships from the perspective of persons with SMI. METHOD: A review of qualitative studies, based on an earlier systematic search, analyzed through thematic analysis. RESULTS: The main themes were "non-helpful professionals", "organization versus relation" and "the consequences of non-helpful relationships with professionals". Examples of professionals described as non-helpful were pessimistic and uncaring professionals who were paternalistic and disrespectful. Discontinuity, insufficient time and coercion were some of the contextual factors described as non-helpful. These sorts of relationships were non-helpful because they hindered helpful relationships from developing and contributed to further suffering, instilling hopelessness and hindering personal growth. CONCLUSIONS: Non-helpful relationships with professionals can be understood as impersonal relationships that contain no space for negotiation of the relationship nor of the support and treatment provided through it. It is important that organizations provide professionals with favorable conditions to negotiate the organizational framework and to treat persons with SMI as whole human beings.

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