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Moving Beyond the Illness: Factors Contributing to Gaining and Maintaining Employment
Author(s) -
Cunningham Kiran,
Wolbert Randall,
Brockmeier Mary Beth
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1005136531079
Subject(s) - mental illness , health psychology , assertive community treatment , psychology , supported employment , coping (psychology) , assertiveness , exploratory research , mental health , qualitative research , work (physics) , social psychology , public health , psychiatry , clinical psychology , nursing , medicine , sociology , mechanical engineering , social science , anthropology , engineering
The work presented here, exploratory in nature, uses a comparative and qualitative approach to understand the factors associated with the ability of individuals with severe and persistent mental illness to successfully gain and maintain employment. Based on open‐ended interviews with individuals in an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, we compare the experiences of those who have been successful gaining and maintaining employment, with those who have been successful gaining but not maintaining work, and those who have been unsuccessful gaining employment. The three groups seemed to differ in three significant ways: (1) in the ways the individuals talked about their illness, (2) in the ways the individuals talked about work, and (3) in the strategies they described for coping with bad days. In each of these areas individuals' awareness of and attitude toward their illness was significant. The findings have clear implications for agencies working to help people with severe and persistent mental illness obtain and maintain employment.