1. Marion Aslan www.crazydiamond.org.uk
The THRIVE Approach
Marion Aslan

2. Time
Healing
Resilience
Interdependence
Vivacity
Emancipation

3. THRIVE Self help / guided approach to recovery
Supplements current models of working
Meets best practice criteria
Appropriate to all levels and areas of distress

4. The concept of THRIVE is one of taking the key
elements of restoration and recovery and using
them as the foundation stones for finding and
achieving the future you want to build.

5. If recovery is a journey, a process, a direction
rather than an event or a label then there has to
be a map, a guide, short cuts, beginnings and an
overall direction.

6. Advantages of the THRIVE Approach
Teaches short cuts
Draws on people’s innate strengths and abilities
Enables people to find order in a disordered world!
Sees madness as a natural coping strategy that need not be permanent
Places individual at the heart of the recovery process

7. Resilience (recovery)
POTENTIAL RESPONSES TO DISTRESS
Thriving
Event
Resilience (recovery)
Survival with impairment
Level of Functioning
Succumbing
Time

8. The role of self in recovery -what helps?

9. Elements that underpin recovery
Hope & hopefulness
Ownership
Self
Activity
Personal
Choice
THRIVE encompasses these within
Time Healing Resilience Interdependence Vivacity Emancipation

10. Recovery may take you back to where you
were, but to thrive means so much more.
It enables you to regain and reclaim life
not just as it was, but as it would and should have
been had the disruption not occurred.
It is a far more optimistic and hopeful concept.
Marion Aslan

11. Recovery and Thriving
Where the similarities lie are in the initial process
of becoming unstuck, the underpinning elements
that support moving on and the commitment
required from self to put in the work and effort
necessary for advancement.
Marion Aslan

12. “We all have that essential human resilience within us, not
to give in. We all have that capacity to grow stronger
through adversity” Courtney Harding, U.S.A.
Hope and optimism is crucial to the process and even this can be learned!
The THRIVE approach firmly believes that the individual is the expert of his or her experiences, and within every person lies the necessary resources to facilitate reclamation of their life.

13. In order to thrive, there is a clear process of
Breakdown, Breakthrough and Breakout
(Aslan & Smith 2008) which embraces recovery but
goes even further. It liberates the individual,
emancipates and encourages responsibility taking.
It can be actively supported by friends, family, workers and
colleagues, but the key person is you, your hopes and
desires and a commitment to reclaiming your life, working
through problem areas and gaining insight into yourself.

14. Experience in a social context Explore your experiences Reconnecting
Startling/ inc. toxic factors
Engage with others get information
Reclaim power & ownership
Overwhelming
Understand and make sense
Change relationship with experience
Get safe
Make choices begin to recognise power/politics
Emancipate self
Get stuck!
struggling
Begin to engage with experience
Reject labels/
Confront power
Mourning loss & healing
Identifying your experiences, Name the problem
THRIVE !
Get safe again
Get stuck!
maintained

15. Time TIME is a natural healer as long as we don’t resist the
process and become stuck. Think of someone you have
loved who has died. The pain of grief becomes less raw
over time – you don’t forget or stop missing the person,
but over time you focus on the joy of knowing them rather
than the pain of losing them.
So it can be with emotional problems. With TIME you will
feel differently, gain a different perspective and move away
from the distress you feel right now.

16. Timelines Negative events Past Positive events Present
Do you see any patterns in your timeline?
Can you identify where your didtress began, or when it became problematic?
Does that follow any event or events in particular?
Past Positive events Present

17. Healing Healing is integral to recovery and essential to
everyone’s wellbeing, sometimes easier to impart
to others than to give to ourselves.
There may be reasons why
we block our own healing
– guilt, worthlessness,
shame, lack of belief in our
own worth. .

18. Part of the healing process is to acknowledge these emotions, and allow healing elements into our consciousness.

19. Resilience Showing Resilience is a common factor in those
who have survived and rebuilt their lives. Indeed
we all have a degree of resilience, and some
people are able to draw on their inner reserves
and show Resilience even where
the system may squash it.
It is also possible to build up our
own resilience and to help support
the process in others.

20. Resilience encompasses the psychological damage
AND enduring strength that can result from
struggling with hardship

21. “We can call this natural healing process resilience.
It is integral to and underpins recovery. It’s a
process of taking back control of your life and
reinventing yourself”
Courtney Harding, U.S.A.

22. “We all have that essential human resilience within
us, not to give in. We all have that capacity to
grow stronger through adversity”
Courtney Harding, U.S.A.

23. Interdependence We all rely on other people for some things some of
the time, and other people
may rely on us.
These are the natural
supports we can build on.

24. Interdependence A healthier attitude is to look at ways of increasing
Our personal connections and relationships,
building Circles of Support

25. Vivacity Vivacity is not a term we hear very often in mental health
spheres but our conviction is that we should be thinking
about this as a vital part of recovery. Being animated, full
of enjoyment of life is possible for all. Many people who
have experienced severe lows in their lives talk about
enjoying life even more after coming through illness or
depression.

26. Emancipation Emancipation or liberation comes with taking
control of one’s own life and celebrating your own
individuality and uniqueness. Playing a vital role in
society and being valued can enhance our sense of
freedom and remove us from the constraints of
being regarded as mentally unwell, maintained in
the system and feeling as if life happens to other
people.

27. “This book fills a gap, where psychiatry more and more
fails to see that mental health problems are a reaction to
problems in life and not only, if at all, symptoms of an
illness.
The THRIVE Approach focuses on the person’s own
potential and their capabilities to find solutions for their
problems. Using this process, it is about framing your
understanding of your experiences”
Marius Romme,
Professor Emeritus of Social Psychiatry, Maastricht
Author of “Understanding Voices & “Accepting Voices”

28. The approach encourages the individual to
Learn self therapy
Find ways of increasing resilience
reframe their experience
and either “let go” or “work through”
Find a future
Find restored hope

29. The approach encourages the supporter to
Act as a “reflector”
Take a more active listening role
Learn the language of distress
Understand metaphor & meaning
Retain hopefulness
Be a companion or guide on the journey
Enables workers to reclaim their helping roles

30. Feedback from participants on
THRIVE course
Challenged some of my ideas – e.g. the behaviour and lifestyles of some people who might seem “risky” or “abnormal” are strategies of survival
This course helped me put aside my background and training, allowing learning from others and to look at who is the expert
Gave me confidence to work with clients in a person centred way

31. The THRIVE Assessment & Planning Tool
The planning tool is for individuals who are currently receiving services or support.
It will assist recovery by helping to organise and plan all relevant support needs in a way that is useful to the individual, their workers and families, giving an overall direction of where the person wishes to be in their life
Ownership belongs to the individual - they assume responsibility in determining their care plan
Risk and safety issues negotiated

32. The THRIVE Approach…
Focuses on the values of working with individuals in a person centred, hopeful way towards recovery.
It sometimes challenges traditional thinking and concepts of mental illness, focusing rather on working with the individual, their story, their hopes, their dreams, skills and strengths rather than symptoms

33. Potential Outcomes of the THRIVE approach
People regard themselves differently – “survivors” , “victors”
Self knowledge
Self acceptance
Self determination
Self worth
Pride – “I am who I am”

34. Outcomes for workers
Renewed enthusiasm – the job you originally set out to do!
Pride in new skills – a huge variety
Optimism and fulfilment – seeing people reclaim their lives
Self worth arising from self knowledge

35. I wanted to let you know, at a difficult time personally and
professionally, I found it uplifting, positive, clear, simple,
not patronising, encouraging me in the way that I work,
inclusive, varied, funny and very real.
I have passed on details to the coordinator for mental
health promotion, to the rest of my team and to some folk
involved in recovery stories down here.
Thank you both for all the hard work putting it together and for the
inspiration!
All the very best with the project
Frances, Community Psychiatric Nurse, C.M.H.T. Cornwall

36. Sometimes its just a different perspective that is needed.
If you don’t believe us, look sideways