What is Recovery?

“Mental health recovery is a journey of healing and transformation enabling a person with a mental health problem to live a meaningful life in a community of his or her choice while striving to achieve his or her full potential.” (National Consensus Statement on Mental Health Recovery, 2006.)  

When a person is diagnosed with a serious mental illness, it is common for their diagnosis/mental health issues to become the core of the personality or identity.  Often times, their roles, hobbies and relationships either disappear or get weakened as their illness takes control of these aspects of the individual’s life.  Rather than committing a balanced amount of time to all aspects of their life, the illness gets the vast majority of their time.

Recovery is often equated with cure, a return to how things were before the illness or injury occurred, a process of getting back to normal, but by this definition few, if any, who experience severe mental illness recover (Whitwell, 2005).

Recovery has come to mean that the concept and experience of personal recovery is not limited by the presence or absence of symptoms and disabilities, nor the ongoing use of services. The concept of personal recovery pivots around considerations of how to live and how to live well in the context of long-term mental health conditions.

Based on her personal experience, Patricia Deegan defines recovery as ‘a process, a way of life, an attitude and a way of approaching the day’s challenges’. The recovery literature similarly describes being in recovery as an ongoing process, which involves gaining or regaining many aspects of life that are usually taken for granted and may be lost or severely compromised by a mental illness.

Recovery may involve many stages and inevitably setbacks and uncertainty and has been described as ‘an uncharted, unpredictable and personal journey’ finding meaning in one’s experiences, resolving personal, social or relationship issues that may contribute to one’s mental health difficulties, taking on satisfying and meaningful social roles.

Recovery is…

•         a shift of emphasis from clinical and social recovery to personal recovery as valued and defined by the individual.

•         defined by the person’s interest, preference and dreams.

•         the process of regaining active control over one’s life.

•         the process of attaining a “life worth living”.

•         discovering or rediscovering a positive sense of self, accepting and coping with the reality of any ongoing distress or disability.

•         partaking in valued and respected roles with the rights, freedoms and responsibilities of any member of our society. 

•         calling on formal and/or informal systems of support as needed.

Services can be an important aspect of recovery but the extent of the need for services will vary from one person to another.  For some people, recovery may mean exiting from mental health services either permanently or for much of the time.  For others it may mean continuing to receive ongoing forms of medical, personal or social support that empower people to move forward with their lives.