Adam Clifford explains how a recovery-based strategy involving written and filmed interventions has helped a man with a mild intellectual disability and complex mental health needs

Individualised recovery values are becoming increasingly important in the care of people with intellectual disabilities and mental health needs. This article describes how a man with a mild intellectual disability and mental health problems, and his multidisciplinary team, collaborated in the development of written and video-recorded recovery materials based partly on cognitive behavioural ideas. These materials have helped the client to cope better with extreme thoughts, strong feelings and strange experiences, and to understand and manage his feelings of distress. It is hoped that recovery videos similar to the one discussed in this article will become widely available to help people become experts in their own mental health.