Beyond Symptom Reduction: Exploring Personal Recovery in Refugees with PTSD in Denmark

This PhD project investigates personal recovery as an outcome of treatment for refugees with trauma-related disorders through two interrelated studies, in order to support the development of more inclusive, culturally responsive, and recovery-oriented mental health services. The project explores both the clinical measurability and the lived meaning of personal recovery, bridging quantitative and qualitative approaches to deepen our understanding of healing beyond symptom reduction.
• Study 1 assess whether and how personal recovery (measured using the Brief INSPIRE-O) occurs alongside traditional clinical outcomes (e.g., PTSD symptom reduction, functioning, distress), and examines which clinical, psychosocial, or demographic factors predict changes in personal recovery.
Study 2 explores how individuals with a refugee background construct, narrate, and give meaning to personal recovery in the context of mental illness. It investigates how recovery is shaped by participants’ cultural identities, migration experiences, relational contexts, and engagements with dominant discourses such as psychiatry and integration. Rather than treating recovery as a fixed outcome, this study approaches it as a fluid, socially embedded, and discursively constructed process that unfolds over time and across multiple life domains.