Giving can be meaningful. A two-part qualitative analysis to restore and decode professionals’ understandings of meaningfulness in dual recovery

Abstract

Through a double interpretation of a focus group interview, the study explores how recovery-oriented professionals in a supported housing facility for people in dual recovery support the residents’ need for meaningfuless in everyday life, and how this work may also facilitate the professionals’ own need for meaningfuless. Findings suggest that professionals promote meaningful everyday life for residents by constructing (1) an open house (2) a house with a framework, and (3) a house of change, and for them self by constructing (4) a house of giving. The study proposes that a discourse is active in the data, namely, that the professional is usually in the position of giving and the person in recovery is usually in the position of receiving. We suggest that if professionals wish to promote recovery, they should provide opportunities for service users to give, not just to receive.