This book takes the lofty vision of "recovery" and of a "life in the community" for every adult with a mental illness promised by the U.S. President's New Freedom Commission and shows the reader what is entailed in making this vision a practical reality for people with mental illnesses and their families.

This book takes a lofty vision of "recovery" and of "a life in the community" for every adult with a serious mental illness promised by the U.S. President's 2003 New Freedom Commission on Mental Health and shows the reader what is entailed in making this vision a reality. Beginning with the historical context of the recovery movement and its recent emergence on the center stage of mental health policy around the world, the authors then clarify various definitions of mental health recovery and address the most common misconceptions of recovery held by skeptical practitioners and worried families. With this framework in place, the authors suggest fundamental principles for recovery-oriented care, a set of concrete practice guidelines developed in and for the field, a recovery guide model of practice as an alternative to clinical case management, and tools to self-assess the recovery orientation of practices and practitioners. In doing so, this volume represents the first book to go beyond the rhetoric of recovery to its implementation in everyday practice. Much of this work was developed with the State of Connecticut's Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, helping the state to win a #1 ranking in the recent NAMI report card on state mental health authorities. Since initial development of these principles, guidelines, and tools in Connecticut, the authors have become increasingly involved in refining and tailoring this approach for other systems of care around the globe as more and more governments, ministry leaders, system managers, practitioners, and people with serious mental illnesses and their families embrace the need to transform mental health services to promote recovery and community inclusion. If you've wondered what all of the recent to-do has been about with the notion of "recovery" in mental health, this book explains it. In addition, it gives you an insider's view of the challenges and strategies involved in transforming to recovery and a road map to follow on the first few steps down this exciting, promising, and perhaps long overdue path.

Partnering for Recovery in Mental Health is a practical guide for conducting person and family-centered recovery planning with individuals with serious mental illnesses and their families. It is derived from the authors’ extensive experience in articulating and implementing recovery-oriented practice and has been tested with roughly 3,000 providers who work in the field as well as with numerous post-graduate trainees in psychology, social work, nursing, and psychiatric rehabilitation. It has consistently received highly favorable evaluations from health care professionals as well as people in recovery from mental illness. This guide represents a new clinical approach to the planning and delivery of mental health care. It emerges from the mental health recovery movement, and has been developed in the process of the efforts to transform systems of care at the local, regional, and national levels to a recovery orientation. It will be an extremely useful tool for planning care within the context of current health care reform efforts and increasingly useful in the future, as systems of care become more person-centered. Consistent with other patient-centered care planning approaches, this book adapts this process specifically to meet the needs of persons with serious mental illnesses and their families. Partnering for Recovery in Mental Health is an invaluable guide for any person involved directly or indirectly in the provision, monitoring, evaluation, or use of community-based mental health care.

Presenting a compelling alternative to the traditional medical approach, The Strengths Model demonstrates an evidence-based approach to helping people with a psychiatric disability identify and achieve meaningful and important life goals. Since the first edition of this classic textbook appeared, the strengths model has matured into a robust vision of mental health services. Both a philosophy of practice and a specific set of tools and methods, the strengths model is designed to facilitate a recovery-oriented partnership between client and practitioner. This completely revised edition charts the evolution of the strengths model, reviews the empirical support behind it, and illustrates the techniques and values that guide its application. Features new to this edition: - An extensive update of the strengths literature, focusing on recovery as the dominant paradigm in mental health services - Richly drawn case vignettes demonstrating the application of methods - Integration of empirical research and consumers' own experiences - Completely updated strengths assessment and fidelity scales - In-depth discussions and examples guide practitioners from theory to applied practice - Descriptions of how to teach and successfully supervise large-scale implementations of strengths model work For social workers and other mental health specialists working with clients to move beyond the disabling effects of mental illness to a life filled with meaning, purpose, and identity, this remains the crucial text.

An essential volume for improving understanding of the recovery process for people diagnosed with schizophrenia Schizophrenia is widely considered the most severe and disabling of the mental illnesses. Yet recent research has demonstrated that many people afflicted with the disorder are able to recover to a significant degree. Living Outside Mental Illness demonstrates the importance of listening to what people diagnosed with schizophrenia themselves have to say about their struggle, and shows the dramatic effect this approach can have on clinical practice and social policy. It presents an in-depth investigation, based on a phenomenological perspective, of experiences of illness and recovery as illuminated by compelling first-person descriptions. This volume forcefully makes the case for the utility of qualitative methods in improving our understanding of the reasons for the success or failure of mental health services. The research has important clinical and policy implications, and will be of key interest to those in psychology and the helping professions as well as to people in recovery and their families.

This is a vital resource for anyone looking to better support people with psychosis and serious mental illnesses.

Focuses on a shift away from traditional clinical preoccupations towards new priorities of supporting the patient.