The Recovery Process and People with Serious Mental Illness Living in the Community

Abstract

Several trends have moved the concept of recovery to the forefront of mental health policy and service delivery for people with serious mental illnesses. This article describes an occupational therapy based model to examine recovery using a four-stage approach. The model demonstrates the complexity of recovery as a construct and emphasizes the value of quantitative data for program planning and evaluation purposes and need for a qualitative measure to assure adherence to the individualized nature of recovery as a process.

Key Words:

• Recovery
• occupational therapy
• serious mental illness
• community reintegration