"Many of us who have used mental health services have been told what we ‘have,’ how ‘it’ will be treated and how we must think about arranging our lives around this thing.

"We have then begun to see our lives as a series of problems or ‘symptoms’ and we have forgotten that there might be other ways to interpret our experiences."

- Shery Mead, as quoted in Emerging New Practices in Organized Peer Support, National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), 2003

When you are faced with a mental illness, life is often confusing, and it can be difficult to focus on the idea of recovery. When we hear these are chronic illnesses, we begin to think only of our deficits and losses. Thoughts of recovery can seem far away or even impossible to us, those who treat us, and those who care about us.

But there’s a different way of looking at mental illnesses now, a vision focusing on recovery and self-determination, emphasizing the importance of peer support and focusing on the person with the mental illness, supporting and building on their dreams and desires. There’s a growing recognition, supported by increasing amounts of research, that recovery is possible when consumers are an integral part of their own treatment and support systems.

The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health validated this trend when it pointed to a vision of Mental Health Care as Consumer-Driven. The Commission’s Executive Summary states, "The goal of a transformed system is recovery."

In a transformed mental health service delivery system, the Commission says, "Care must focus on increasing consumers’ ability to successfully cope with life’s challenges, on facilitating recovery, and on building resilience, not just on managing symptoms." Their report goes on to say that this system must be "built around consumers’ needs," and that it must be "seamless and convenient."

More and more people are calling for a transition from a medical model of mental health service delivery to a recovery model.

Download the Medical Model/Recovery Model chart

Adopting the recovery model means a fundamental shift to a system where consumers change the way they participate in treatment, where they become active – not passive – participants in their own journey toward wellness. You and the people supporting your recovery (this may include health care professionals, other consumers, family, and friends) are partners in this process. Sometimes you may need more help from your partners, other times less.

Key to recovery is the concept of self-determination. Simply put, people succeed when they become empowered to determine their own destiny. People will be more committed to a treatment plan that they have chosen, versus one that is imposed on them, even by those who are well-meaning. When the person with a mental illness takes center stage in working toward his/her own wellness, success will follow.