Participants’ lived experience of pursuing personal goals in the Illness Management and Recovery program

Background: The Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) program is designed to support people diagnosed with severe mental illness in developing tailored illness-management skills and to pursue personal goals. Although IMR is a goal-oriented program, little is know about the participants’ experience of goal-setting as part of IMR. Aim: To describe participants’ lived experience of personal goal-setting as part of the Illness Management and Recovery program (IMR). Method: A descriptive, phenomenological research design was employed with individual interviews. Results: IMR helped the participants break down their personal goals into manageable short-term goals. The main themes were as follows: ‘We were guided to set clearer and specific goals in IMR’, ‘We were encouraged to pursue our personal goals in IMR’ and ‘We were encouraged and supported to resume work on our goals when we stopped making progress’. The findings emphasise goal-setting in IMR as a means to instilling hope for the future and work on goals. Conclusions: The participants learned to identify, articulate and initiate work towards short- and long-term goals when guided by the instructor and supported by peers in the IMR group. Goal-setting is a useful method for breaking down personal recovery goals into a practical short-term goals and motivating participants to pursue them. The findings indicate goal-setting is an important part of the IMR-program, but suggest that flexibility in goal-setting is needed, especially in the time required to achieve personal goals.