ABSTRACT
Many people who have written personal accounts of their own recovery are clear that healing and recovery are not linear processes and will involve many setbacks. As participants settled into regular membership of their GROW group they began to be drawn into a number of healing and reciprocal forms of relationship. Music, dance, warmth, friendship and laughter were continually mentioned as the most healing part of extending social networks. Through friendship, people began to be liberated from the toxic identity of 'mental patient' or 'hopeless other', and their terror and isolation began to be transformed into a healing and reciprocal belonging, creating what Schweitzer and Lemke (1998) called 'a brotherhood of suffering'. As people began to recover they came to realize that their mental health and recovery were primarily their own responsibility, not that of their doctor or the mental health team.
