This article offers a critical reading of the recovery paradigm in the mental health field in social work, by analyzing the daily ethical conducts associated with this concept. We conducted a literature review of scientific articles published in social work in two databases and six journals, from which we selected a randomized sample of 45 articles. A poststructuralist discourse analysis of this data shows that recovery is characterized by an ethic of the self that is congruent with normative expectations. From this, we offer tools to avoid totalizing and imposing interventions in social work.