The rediscovered concept of recovery in mental illness

Recovery has recently reemerged in many countries as a key concept in mental health. Several long-term outcome studies have highlighted much higher recovery rates than previously assumed for persons with long-term mental illness. Service users (consumers) and professionals are now promoting this approach, and for users, recovery is about taking control over their own lives and introducing improvements which may or may not be related to clinical indicators of recovery. This approach also requires that professionals work with consumers in a much more collaborative fashion then in the past. Australia, Canada, England, and Israel have all formally accepted recovery as the cornerstone of their mental health policies and are currently in various phases of implementation. This paper describes these developments and identifies the implications for mental health social work.