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• Success
Stories According to Pat Deegan, a psychologist with schizophrenia, recovery from serious mental illness is defined as “Rediscovering meaning and purpose after a series of catastrophic events which mental illness is.” When someone becomes mentally ill they not only lose their touch with reality (albeit temporarily for most people), but also their position in society, friends, income and sometimes family. Yet, experience and research shows that recovery from mental illness is possible; recovery teaches us that with proper support, people can regain their lives and their independence. (Edward L. Knight, Ph.D, 2001) The Recovery Model is about choice and returning the power of treatment to the consumer. Recovery-oriented services incorporate the attitude that recovery is possible and has the goal of promoting hope, healing, empowerment, and connection. Recovery is a partnership built on trust and hope supporting choices for the achievement of individual recovery. Recovery includes recovering from stigma; institutionalization; the effects of poor/wrong treatment/interventions; lack of opportunities for self-determination, social and community access and interactions; the effects of unemployment, miseducation about mental illness; and crushed dreams. Mental health recovery as "A personal process of overcoming the negative impact of a psychiatric disability despite its continued presence". The recovery process is more accurately described as a series of small beginnings and very small steps. Recovery involves the development of new meaning and purpose in one's life as one grows beyond the catastrophic effects of mental illness. Recovery in a major mental illness does not usually mean ‘cure' or return to the premorbid state. Rather, it means a kind of re-adaptation to the illness that allows life to go forward in a meaningful way. The adaptive response is not an end state; it is a process in which the person is continually trying to maximize the fit between his or her needs and their environment.
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