Szilvia Kassai has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology

and addiction from Eövös Loránd University. Her research

interests include recovery processes; what does recovery mean

to a person who is in recovery from addiction or psychiatric

disorder. She is also engaged in utilizing qualitative methods

in psychology research. After the completion of the doctoral

program she was working as a desk o cer for drug issues at

the Ministry of Human Capacities, Hungary. She is currently a

scienti c assistant of National Research, Development and

Innovation O ce.

The present book is the outcome and a summary of my most important papers

written during my PhD years. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was the

most suitable research method for my research inquiry; the recovery approach. When I

have started my PhD research there was no IPA study published in Hungarian language.

That is why the aim of my research was not only to examine recovery processes by IPA

and through this get a deeper insight into this phenomenon, but also to establish the

practice of doing a research with IPA method in the Hungarian language.

This book rstly describes what recovery approach is, and in what areas is it used.

The theoretical foundations and the research design of IPA are also discussed. It is

also concerns why it is bene cial to use IPA in research that assessing recovery stories.

The second part of the book consists of four empirical studies related to the recovery

approach. The nal part of the book discusses all of the study ndings in general and

presents their contribution to the eld.