Recovery Perception

In the past, when mental healthcare services addressed the concept of recovery, they primarily meant the process of healing, or, at least, reducing the symptoms of the illness while relating to diagnostic definitions and the medication therapy required for maintaining mental balance. Over the years, various approaches have developed about recovery from severe mental illnesses. Today, it is understood that the right therapeutic and rehabilitative approach incorporates the medical and the psychosocial approaches, with a broader holistic approach that views the individual as a whole, beyond their mental condition.

In other words, today it is clear that recovery with regard to coping with mental challenges is not just symptom reduction or a return to the previous situation, but rather a deep and personal process of coping, development, and goal-setting with a personal significance and striving to achieve these goals. If you are experiencing a mental health issue, you are the driving force behind your recovery process. You should be at the center of the process, with professionals and policymakers supporting you and providing you with responses. This support will enable you to choose what is best for you, take responsibility for your recovery, believe in the process, and actively participate in building an identity and developing a full and satisfying life that allows you to realize yourself.

Recovery as an ongoing process

Studies have identified a difference in the recovery process of different people coping with mental health challenges. Some demonstrate a “clinical recovery”, manifesting by regression or disappearance of symptoms and return to previous functioning, similar to recovery from severe infection or a broken leg. Others experience “functional recovery”, demonstrating the ability to fulfill social roles like maintaining significant relationships, building a family, having a partner, performing challenging tasks effectively, learning as regular students, and living independently – even while experiencing varying levels of clinical symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations.

This means that whether recovery is clinical or functional, a hopeful way to view it is as an ongoing process in which the individual learns and acquires personal tools and skills for managing their lives in this world. At the same time, their environment is optimally enlisted and provides them with the adaptations and assistance they need.

Recovery as part of rehabilitation

The recovery process from a mental health condition can be viewed similarly to the rehabilitation process following an injury that caused a physical disability. For example, if you had an accident or an illness that caused a physical disability such as paralysis of the lower extremities, it is not helpful to wait for your mobility to be restored to begin rehabilitating your life, rather you must learn how to function in the world in a new way. In the same way, an individual with a mental health condition does not have to wait until the symptoms disappear to start the recovery process. The aim is to conduct an independent and meaningful life with a disability through environmental adaptation. For example, for a paralyzed person using a wheelchair, the intention is to make public spaces accessible, including sidewalk ramps, the addition of handrails, and so on; for a blind person, the intention is to add Braille signs on doors and elevators and to allow the use of service dogs in public spaces.

According to this approach, it is essential to identify the support each individual with severe mental health challenges needs to integrate into society – socially, occupationally, and educationally. This identification allows for providing appropriate tools for rehabilitating the ability to conduct independent life efficiently and for identifying and promoting personally meaningful goals.

A barrier called stigma

Social stigma, offensive stereotypes, and prejudice can cause repulsion and discrimination toward individuals with mental challenges. These stigmas can make the recovery and rehabilitation processes extremely difficult. The approach addressing recovery as part of a rehabilitation process emphasizes the fact that recovery processes do not happen in a vacuum, and each of them has a personal, social, and cultural context. The society we are living in has a responsibility to identify and overcome the social barriers faced by individuals with mental health challenges who are trying to integrate into the community and to assist them in overcoming these barriers on the way to recovery.

You, as individuals with mental health challenges, are an integral part of society. Throughout your lives, you have likely encountered prejudice about mental health conditions and perhaps even believed some of it yourself. So, upon receiving your diagnosis, these prejudices you may have had in the past towards others are now directed internally. This is a known phenomenon called “self-stigma”. It is important to remember that these negative thoughts do not reflect reality or your real value. You are much more than the diagnosis you received.

In other words, the model offers a positive approach to mental health, with emphasis on the factors that contribute to mental resilience, instead of focusing solely or specifically on symptoms.

Healing as recovery social trauma

Coping with a mental health condition and its potential social and personal implications, including stigma, discrimination, rejection, loss of work and status, loss of social roles and valued identities, unemployment, poverty, and isolation, is often experienced as trauma. Healing is an active process that is intended to cope with the trauma and heal it, and not just the mental health condition’s symptoms.

It is important to point out that society plays an important role in eliminating, or at least minimizing the social consequences that usually come with the situation to enable optimal conditions for integration and recovery.

It is not only personal healing from a trauma, but also a collective healing of a group in society composed of individuals with mental health challenges. This group for most of history has been grossly denied its rights, neglected, and robbed of hope. This collective organization helps individuals in the recovery process through advocacy, activism, and striving for systemic change. It also fosters sharing, support, and inspiration drawn from the personal experience of those who have recovered.

Recovery-oriented therapeutic approach

The current recovery revolution is not just about respectfully providing services while taking into account the value of the person. It is about a genuine conviction about the strength of the individual with a mental health condition in the recovery process.

In the past, patients were seen as passive and dependent. However, in the current model, the individual is perceived as an active and leading participant in the therapy and recovery process, with therapy, rehabilitation, and illness management supporting the patient in achieving their goals.

I am not my illness

When a person receives a psychiatric diagnosis, they may feel it defines them – I am schizophrenic, I am depressed, etc. – when in reality, they are much more than that. We all have feelings, hobbies, talents, dreams, friends, and loved ones – a collection of inseparable components. Coping with mental health challenges is just a small fraction of who we are, and it does not define us. Everyone can establish an identity and personal goals outside the illness; it is always worth daring and trying, not to avoid and stop life from going.

Psychiatric symptoms can be challenging and even reduce our capabilities, activities, and identities, at least temporarily. The risk of the condition becoming chronic often arises less from the primary symptoms themselves but from the loss of life opportunities, diminished social roles, and erosion of self-confidence and future security. Therefore, recovery must focus on expanding opportunities, enriching experiences, building personal skills, developing our identities, and promoting self-esteem.

Mental recovery also involves building an identity that suits me and my other roles in life, such as being a parent, capable worker, good friend, creative artist, and more. My mental health condition is yet another challenge in addition to the collection of things that define me, and it is not, necessarily, my essence.

Finding meaning in coping

One of the most important things about the recovery approach is that specifically through coping, the opportunity arises to find a new meaning in life. Often, personal experiences help you better understand and support others. Perhaps the recovery process will make you discover inner strengths you never knew existed. Each person has a unique path and personal significance.

The recovery approach does not perceive a person as passive, coping with a psychiatric illness and depending solely on therapy, but as a full and active participant in the recovery process. You have a say in determining the goals and selecting the ways to achieve them. The goal of the professional staff is to support the process and help you identify and maximize your capabilities and personal strengths toward recovery. However, responsibility and control over the progress are yours.

The recovery process is also a process of constant learning – it will teach you to realize what helps you and what does not help you. It may assist you in developing tools to cope with your difficulties, such as meditation, writing, cooking, or sports. The selection of which tool to add to your toolbox is in your control, and it will help you toward recovery and promote your progress toward achieving your goals and a better quality of life.

Hope and building a future

One of the most important things in the concept of recovery is hope. Even if you had a difficult and dark period, and even if you are still facing some challenges, it doesn't mean that life, from this point forward, will always be this way. The focus should be on coping with challenges and difficulties and living a full life despite them.

The most important thing to remember is that recovery is a journey. It has its ups and downs; sometimes you move forward and sometimes backward. This is a natural and normal process. Every step offers an opportunity for learning, empowerment, and discovering who I am, what I want, what I am capable of, and how I move forward.

Indeed, a mental health condition is not an easy challenge. However, with the help of the best possible care, social support, personal will, individual capabilities, and the unique worth of every individual, improvement will arrive, as well as opportunities for development growth, and a fuller life. Even if your symptoms do not disappear completely and continue to accompany you on various levels further in life, you can still create a satisfying and significant life while coping with the mental challenges.