Psychiatric Recovery Examples

Psychiatric Rehabilitation lournai

Copyright 2007 Trustees of Boston University
DOi: 10.2975/31.1.2007.32.37

2007, Volume 31, No. 1, 32-37

ARTICLE
Recovery: A Common
Vision for the Fields of Mental
Health and Addictions
V
Cheryl Gagne
Boston University
WiUiam White
Chestnut Health Systems,
Bloomington, Illinois
William A. Anthony
Boston University

The vision of recovery is reshaping the fields of mental health and addiction services. This paper reviews how this broad vision is shaping common goals, principles, values and strategies across the two fields. We further examine how a common vision of recovery can positively impact the treatment of co-occurring disorders and speculate on how this vision can bridge the
Frontier issues within this re-emerging recovery focus include struggles to define recovery and its conceptual and linguistic

boundaries (White, 2002), efforts to measure the prevalence of addiction recovery in America (Road to Recovery,
1998), calls for a recovery research agenda (White, 2000), a shift from the current acute models of problem intervention to models of sustained recovery management (McLellan, Lewis,
O 'Brien, & Kleber, 2000; White et al.,
2002) and the growth in peer-based models of recovery support services
Qason, Davis, Ferrari, & Bishop, 2001;
White, 2004c). This renewed recovery focus is evident in the White House initiated Access to Recovery program, the Center for Substance Abuse
Treatment 's Recovery Community
Support Program, and in state efforts to develop more recovery-oriented systems of care (see http://www. dmhas.state.ct.us/policies/policy83. htm).
Common Characteristics Between
Each disorder was considered to be intractable and stories of recovery were rare. People living with either disorder were expected to end up in the least favorable places in society, the gutter, prisons, asylums, or morgues.
Throughout history, both systems of care have been distracted by debates about the causes and nature of the disorders, troubled by widespread prejudice and discrimination, and undermined by the criminalization of behaviors associated with the disorders.
Even today, addiction and mental illness occupy a common space of disgrace in society.
Examining the characteristics influencing recovery from addiction and recovery from mental illness, it is astonishing that the two fields have not collaborat-

ed to organize services under a common vision of recovery. (See Table 1).
People living with psychiatric and/or addiction disorders want to eliminate or manage their symptoms, increase their capacity to participate in valued roles, and embrace purpose and meaning in their lives, in other words, experience recovery. People in recovery from mental illness and/or addiction disorders are leading the call to change the current service systems of care