The aim of Roles in Transition is to enable service users to acknowledge changes they may need to make in their roles and relationships during their transition to wellness, in order to maintain their recovery.
When someone has gone through treatment, there may be changes they need or want to introduce in their lives to help them to maintain their mental health.
Every individual is made up of various ‘parts’; a daughter, father, aunt, accountant, actor, friend and so on. The roles that we have in our lives, whether they are chosen (career) or we are born into them (son/daughter) continuously evolve throughout our lives in the face of life events, and as we journey through the life cycle.
The aims of this programme is are:
- facilitate service users in their journey from illness to wellness, by acknowledging that they may need to introduce changes in their roles within relationships in order to prolong their wellness
- acknowledge that a change may have occurred, triggering an episode of illness which the service user needs to develop skills to adapt to.
This is done by:
- helping to identify the different roles that make up the whole self, and the tasks and expectations within those roles
- explore skills, strategies and obstacles to implement the desired changes
- recognize the impact that this change may have on those around us and the impact their subsequent behaviour has on us.
These changes may be temporary or permanent. They may be within working relationships or intimate relationships. They may involve introducing new roles to their lives.
Throughout the group, we look at both strategies for and obstacles to introducing change. The goal is not to have all changes introduced by the end of the four weeks, but to have begun the process of change.
The Roles in Transition group runs for a half day each week for four weeks and facilitated by a Systemic Family Therapist. The minimum number of attendees is six and the maximum is 12. This programme is not suitable for anyone experiencing psychotic symptoms or suicidal thoughts; who does not wish to work in a group setting; or who cannot attend the four group sessions.
This is a day patient programme based at St Patrick's Hospital Lucan.
